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EFFICIENCY THROUGH CHANGE OF PACE
Hear how he clears the points o' Faith
Wi' rattlin' an' thumpin'!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's stampin' an' he's jumpin'.
--ROBERT BURNS, _Holy Fair_.
The Latins have bequeathed to us a word that has no precise equivalent
in our tongue, therefore we have accepted it, body unchanged--it is the
word _tempo_, and means _rate of movement_, as measured by the time
consumed in executing that movement.
Thus far its use has been largely limited to the vocal and musical arts,
but it would not be surprising to hear tempo applied to more concrete
matters, for it perfectly illustrates the real meaning of the word to
say that an ox-cart moves in slow tempo, an express train in a fast
tempo. Our guns that fire six hundred times a minute, shoot at a fast
tempo; the old muzzle loader that required three minutes to load, shot
at a slow tempo. Every musician understands this principle: it requires
longer to sing a half note than it does an eighth note.
Now tempo is a tremendously important element in good platform work, for
when a speaker delivers a whole address at very nearly the same rate of
speed he is depriving himself of one of his chief means of emphasis and
power. The baseball pitcher, the bowler in cricket, the tennis server,
all know the value of change of pace--change of tempo--in delivering
their ball, and so must the public speaker observe its power.
_Change of Tempo Lends Naturalness to the Delivery_
Naturalness, or at least seeming naturalness, as was explained in the
chapter on "Monotony," is greatly to be desired, and a continual change
of tempo will go a long way towards establishing it. Mr. Howard Lindsay,
Stage Manager for Miss Margaret Anglin, recently said to the present
writer that change of pace was one of the most effective tools of the
actor. While it must be admitted that the stilted mouthings of many
actors indicate cloudy mirrors, still the public speaker would do well
to study the actor's use of tempo.
There is, however, a more fundamental and effective source at which to
study naturalness--a trait which, once lost, is shy of recapture: that
source is the common conversation of any well-bred circle. _This_ is the
standard we strive to reach on both stage and platform--with certain
differences, of course, which will appear as we go on. If speaker and
actor were to reproduce with absolute fidelity every variation of
utterance--every whisper, grunt, pause, silence, and explosion--of
conversation as we find it typically in everyday life, much of the
interest would leave the public utterance. Naturalness in public address
is something more than faithful reproduction of nature--it is the
reproduction of those _typical_ parts of nature's work which are truly
representative of the whole.
The realistic story-writer understands this in writing dialogue, and we
must take it into account in seeking for naturalness through change of
tempo.
Suppose you speak the first of the following sentences in a slow tempo,
the second quickly, observing how natural is the effect. Then speak both
with the same rapidity and note the difference.
I can't recall what I did with my knife. Oh, now I remember I
gave it to Mary.
We see here that a change of tempo often occurs in the same
sentence--for tempo applies not only to single words, groups of words,
and groups of sentences, but to the major parts of a public speech as
well.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. In the following, speak the words "long, long while" very slowly; the
rest of the sentence is spoken in moderately rapid tempo.
When you and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh but the long, long while the world shall last,
Which of our coming and departure heeds,
As the seven seas should heed a pebble cast.
Note: In the following selections the passages that should be given a
fast tempo are in italics; those that should be given in a slow tempo
are in small capitals. Practise these selections, and then try others,
changing from fast to slow tempo on different parts, carefully noting
the effect.
2. No MIRABEAU, NAPOLEON, BURNS, CROMWELL, NO _man_ ADEQUATE
_to_ DO ANYTHING _but is first of all in_ RIGHT EARNEST _about
it--what I call_ A SINCERE _man. I should say_ SINCERITY, _a_
GREAT, DEEP, GENUINE SINCERITY, _is the first_ CHARACTERISTIC
_of a man in any way_ HEROIC. _Not the sincerity that_ CALLS
_itself sincere. Ah no. That is a very poor matter indeed_--A
SHALLOW, BRAGGART, CONSCIOUS _sincerity, oftenest_ SELF-CONCEIT
_mainly. The_ GREAT MAN'S SINCERITY _is of a kind he_ CANNOT
SPEAK OF. _Is_ NOT CONSCIOUS _of_.--THOMAS CARLYLE.
3. TRUE WORTH _is in_ BEING--NOT SEEMING--_in doing each day
that goes by_ SOME LITTLE GOOD, _not in_ DREAMING _of_ GREAT
THINGS _to do by and by. For whatever men say in their_
BLINDNESS, _and in spite of the_ FOLLIES _of_ YOUTH, _there is
nothing so_ KINGLY _as_ KINDNESS, _and nothing so_ ROYAL _as_
TRUTH.--_Anonymous_.
4. To get a natural effect, where would you use slow and where fast
tempo in the following?
_FOOL'S GOLD_
See him there, cold and gray,
Watch him as he tries to play;
No, he doesn't know the way--
He began to learn too late.
She's a grim old hag, is Fate,
For she let him have his pile,
Smiling to herself the while,
Knowing what the cost would be,
When he'd found the Golden Key.
Multimillionaire is he,
Many times more rich than we;
But at that I wouldn't trade
With the bargain that he made.
Came here many years ago,
Not a person did he know;
Had the money-hunger bad--
Mad for money, piggish mad;
Didn't let a joy divert him,
Didn't let a sorrow hurt him,
Let his friends and kin desert him,
While he planned and plugged and hurried
On his quest for gold and power.
Every single wakeful hour
With a money thought he'd dower;
All the while as he grew older,
And grew bolder, he grew colder.
And he thought that some day
He would take the time to play;
But, say--he was wrong.
Life's a song;
In the spring
Youth can sing and can fling;
But joys wing
When we're older,
Like birds when it's colder.
The roses were red as he went rushing by,
And glorious tapestries hung in the sky,
And the clover was waving
'Neath honey-bees' slaving;
A bird over there
Roundelayed a soft air;
But the man couldn't spare
Time for gathering flowers,
Or resting in bowers,
Or gazing at skies
That gladdened the eyes.
So he kept on and swept on
Through mean, sordid years.
Now he's up to his ears
In the choicest of stocks.
He owns endless blocks
Of houses and shops,
And the stream never stops
Pouring into his banks.
I suppose that he ranks
Pretty near to the top.
What I have wouldn't sop
His ambition one tittle;
And yet with my little
I don't care to trade
With the bargain he made.
Just watch him to-day--
See him trying to play.
He's come back for blue skies.
But they're in a new guise--
Winter's here, all is gray,
The birds are away,
The meadows are brown,
The leaves lie aground,
And the gay brook that wound
With a swirling and whirling
Of waters, is furling
Its bosom in ice.
And he hasn't the price,
With all of his gold,
To buy what he sold.
He knows now the cost
Of the spring-time he lost,
Of the flowers he tossed
From his way,
And, say,
He'd pay
Any price if the day
Could be made not so gray.
_He can't play._
--HERBERT KAUFMAN. Used by permission of _Everybody's Magazine_.
_Change of Tempo Prevents Monotony_
The canary in the cage before the window is adding to the beauty and
charm of his singing by a continual change of tempo. If King Solomon had
been an orator he undoubtedly would have gathered wisdom from the song
of the wild birds as well as from the bees. Imagine a song written with
but quarter notes. Imagine an auto with only one speed.
EXERCISES
1. Note the change of tempo indicated in the following, and how it gives
a pleasing variety. Read it aloud. (Fast tempo is indicated by italics,
slow by small capitals.)
_And he thought that some day he would take the time to play;
but, say_--HE WAS WRONG. LIFE'S A SONG; _in the_ SPRING YOUTH
_can_ SING _and can_ FLING; BUT JOYS WING WHEN WE'RE OLDER, LIKE
THE BIRDS _when it's_ COLDER. _The roses were red as he went
rushing by, and glorious tapestries hung in the sky._
2. Turn to "Fools Gold," on Page 42, and deliver it in an unvaried
tempo: note how monotonous is the result. This poem requires a great
many changes of tempo, and is an excellent one for practise.
3. Use the changes of tempo indicated in the following, noting how they
prevent monotony. Where no change of tempo is indicated, use a moderate
speed. Too much of variety would really be a return to monotony.
_THE MOB_
"A MOB KILLS THE WRONG MAN" _was flashed in a newspaper headline
lately. The mob is an_ IRRESPONSIBLE, UNTHINKING MASS. _It
always destroys_ BUT NEVER CONSTRUCTS. _It criticises_ BUT NEVER
CREATES.
_Utter a great truth_ AND THE MOB WILL HATE YOU. _See how it
condemned_ DANTE _to_ EXILE. _Encounter the dangers of the
unknown world for its benefit_, AND THE MOB WILL DECLARE YOU
CRAZY. _It ridiculed_ COLUMBUS, _and for discovering a new
world_ GAVE HIM PRISON AND CHAINS.
_Write a poem to thrill human hearts with pleasure_, AND THE MOB
WILL ALLOW YOU TO GO HUNGRY: THE BLIND HOMER BEGGED BREAD
THROUGH THE STREETS. _Invent a machine to save labor_ AND THE
MOB WILL DECLARE YOU ITS ENEMY. _Less than a hundred years ago a
furious rabble smashed Thimonier's invention, the sewing
machine._
BUILD A STEAMSHIP TO CARRY MERCHANDISE AND ACCELERATE TRAVEL
_and the mob will call you a fool_. A MOB LINED THE SHORES OF
THE HUDSON RIVER TO LAUGH AT THE MAIDEN ATTEMPT OF "FULTON'S
FOLLY," _as they called his little steamboat._
Emerson says: "A mob is a society of bodies voluntarily
bereaving themselves of reason and traversing its work. The mob
is man voluntarily descended to the nature of the beast. _Its
fit hour of activity_ is NIGHT. ITS ACTIONS ARE INSANE, _like
its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle_--IT WOULD
WHIP A RIGHT. It would tar and feather justice by inflicting
fire and outrage upon the house and persons of those who have
these."
The mob spirit stalks abroad in our land today. Every week gives
a fresh victim to its malignant cry for blood. There were 48
persons killed by mobs in the United States in 1913; 64 in 1912,
and 71 in 1911. Among the 48 last year were a woman and a child.
Two victims were proven innocent after their death.
IN 399 B.C. A DEMAGOG APPEALED TO THE POPULAR MOB TO HAVE
SOCRATES PUT TO DEATH _and he was sentenced to the hemlock cup._
FOURTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AFTERWARD AN ENTHUSIAST APPEALED TO THE
POPULAR MOB _and all Europe plunged into the Holy Land to kill
and mangle the heathen. In the seventeenth century a demagog
appealed to the ignorance of men_ AND TWENTY PEOPLE WERE
EXECUTED AT SALEM, MASS., WITHIN SIX MONTHS FOR WITCHCRAFT. _Two
thousand years ago the mob yelled_, "_RELEASE UNTO US
BARABBAS_"--AND BARABBAS WAS A MURDERER!
--_From an Editorial by D.C. in "Leslie's Weekly," by permission._
_Present-day business_ is as unlike OLD-TIME BUSINESS as the
OLD-TIME OX-CART is unlike the _present-day locomotive._
INVENTION has made the _whole world over again. The railroad,
telegraph, telephone_ have bound the people of MODERN NATIONS
into FAMILIES. _To do the business of these closely knit
millions in every modern country_ GREAT BUSINESS CONCERNS CAME
INTO BEING. _What we call big business is the_ CHILD OF THE
ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF MANKIND. _So warfare to destroy big
business_ is FOOLISH BECAUSE IT CAN NOT SUCCEED _and wicked_
BECAUSE IT OUGHT NOT TO SUCCEED. _Warfare to destroy big
business does not hurt big business, which always comes out on
top_, SO MUCH AS IT HURTS ALL OTHER BUSINESS WHICH, IN SUCH A
WARFARE, NEVER COME OUT ON TOP.
--A.J. BEVERIDGE.
_Change of Tempo Produces Emphasis_
Any big change of tempo is emphatic and will catch the attention. You
may scarcely be conscious that a passenger train is moving when it is
flying over the rails at ninety miles an hour, but if it slows down very
suddenly to a ten-mile gait your attention will be drawn to it very
decidedly. You may forget that you are listening to music as you dine,
but let the orchestra either increase or diminish its tempo in a very
marked degree and your attention will be arrested at once.
This same principle will procure emphasis in a speech. If you have a
point that you want to bring home to your audience forcefully, make a
sudden and great change of tempo, and they will be powerless to keep
from paying attention to that point. Recently the present writer saw a
play in which these lines were spoken:
"I don't want you to forget what I said. I want you to remember it the
longest day you--I don't care if you've got six guns." The part up to
the dash was delivered in a very slow tempo, the remainder was named out
at lightning speed, as the character who was spoken to drew a revolver.
The effect was so emphatic that the lines are remembered six months
afterwards, while most of the play has faded from memory. The student
who has powers of observation will see this principle applied by all our
best actors in their efforts to get emphasis where emphasis is due. But
remember that the emotion in the matter must warrant the intensity in
the manner, or the effect will be ridiculous. Too many public speakers
are impressive over nothing.
Thought rather than rules must govern you while practising change of
pace. It is often a matter of no consequence which part of a sentence is
spoken slowly and which is given in fast tempo. The main thing to be
desired is the change itself. For example, in the selection, "The Mob,"
on page 46, note the last paragraph. Reverse the instructions given,
delivering everything that is marked for slow tempo, quickly; and
everything that is marked for quick tempo, slowly. You will note that
the force or meaning of the passage has not been destroyed.
However, many passages cannot be changed to a slow tempo without
destroying their force. Instances: The Patrick Henry speech on page 110,
and the following passage from Whittier's "Barefoot Boy."
O for boyhood's time of June, crowding years in one brief moon,
when all things I heard or saw, me, their master, waited for. I
was rich in flowers and trees, humming-birds and honey-bees; for
my sport the squirrel played; plied the snouted mole his spade;
for my taste the blackberry cone purpled over hedge and stone;
laughed the brook for my delight through the day and through the
night, whispering at the garden wall, talked with me from fall
to fall; mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond; mine the walnut
slopes beyond; mine, an bending orchard trees, apples of
Hesperides! Still, as my horizon grew, larger grew my riches,
too; all the world I saw or knew seemed a complex Chinese toy,
fashioned for a barefoot boy!
--J.G. WHITTIER.
Be careful in regulating your tempo not to get your movement too fast.
This is a common fault with amateur speakers. Mrs. Siddons rule was,
"Take time." A hundred years ago there was used in medical circles a
preparation known as "the shot gun remedy;" it was a mixture of about
fifty different ingredients, and was given to the patient in the hope
that at least one of them would prove efficacious! That seems a rather
poor scheme for medical practice, but it is good to use "shot gun" tempo
for most speeches, as it gives a variety. Tempo, like diet, is best when
mixed.
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Define tempo.
2. What words come from the same root?
3. What is meant by a change of tempo?
4. What effects are gained by it?
5. Name three methods of destroying monotony and gaining force in
speaking.
6. Note the changes of tempo in a conversation or speech that you hear.
Were they well made? Why? Illustrate.
7. Read selections on pages 34, 35, 36, 37, and 38, paying careful
attention to change of tempo.
8. As a rule, excitement, joy, or intense anger take a fast tempo, while
sorrow, and sentiments of great dignity or solemnity tend to a slow
tempo. Try to deliver Lincoln's Gettysburg speech (page 50), in a fast
tempo, or Patrick Henry's speech (page 110), in a slow tempo, and note
how ridiculous the effect will be.
Practise the following selections, noting carefully where the tempo may
be changed to advantage. Experiment, making numerous changes. Which one
do you like best?
_DEDICATION OF GETTYSBURG CEMETERY_
Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are
engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation--or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated--can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to
dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who
have given their lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot
consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living
and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our
power to add or to detract. The world will very little note nor
long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what
they did here.
It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us: that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full
measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God,
have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people,
by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
_A PLEA FOR CUBA_
[This deliberative oration was delivered by Senator Thurston in
the United States Senate on March 24, 1898. It is recorded in
full in the _Congressional Record_ of that date. Mrs. Thurston
died in Cuba. As a dying request she urged her husband, who was
investigating affairs in the island, to do his utmost to induce
the United States to intervene--hence this oration.]
Mr. President, I am here by command of silent lips to speak once
and for all upon the Cuban situation. I shall endeavor to be
honest, conservative, and just. I have no purpose to stir the
public passion to any action not necessary and imperative to
meet the duties and necessities of American responsibility,
Christian humanity, and national honor. I would shirk this task
if I could, but I dare not. I cannot satisfy my conscience
except by speaking, and speaking now.
I went to Cuba firmly believing that the condition of affairs
there had been greatly exaggerated by the press, and my own
efforts were directed in the first instance to the attempted
exposure of these supposed exaggerations. There has undoubtedly
been much sensationalism in the journalism of the time, but as
to the condition of affairs in Cuba, there has been no
exaggeration, because exaggeration has been impossible.
Under the inhuman policy of Weyler not less than four hundred
thousand self-supporting, simple, peaceable, defenseless country
people were driven from their homes in the agricultural portions
of the Spanish provinces to the cities, and imprisoned upon the
barren waste outside the residence portions of these cities and
within the lines of intrenchment established a little way
beyond. Their humble homes were burned, their fields laid waste,
their implements of husbandry destroyed, their live stock and
food supplies for the most part confiscated. Most of the people
were old men, women, and children. They were thus placed in
hopeless imprisonment, without shelter or food. There was no
work for them in the cities to which they were driven. They were
left with nothing to depend upon except the scanty charity of
the inhabitants of the cities and with slow starvation their
inevitable fate....
The pictures in the American newspapers of the starving
reconcentrados are true. They can all be duplicated by the
thousands. I never before saw, and please God I may never again
see, so deplorable a sight as the reconcentrados in the suburbs
of Matanzas. I can never forget to my dying day the hopeless
anguish in their despairing eyes. Huddled about their little
bark huts, they raised no voice of appeal to us for alms as we
went among them....
Men, women, and children stand silent, famishing with hunger.
Their only appeal comes from their sad eyes, through which one
looks as through an open window into their agonizing souls.
The government of Spain has not appropriated and will not
appropriate one dollar to save these people. They are now being
attended and nursed and administered to by the charity of the
United States. Think of the spectacle! We are feeding these
citizens of Spain; we are nursing their sick; we are saving such
as can be saved, and yet there are those who still say it is
right for us to send food, but we must keep hands off. I say
that the time has come when muskets ought to go with the food.
We asked the governor if he knew of any relief for these people
except through the charity of the United States. He did not. We
asked him, "When do you think the time will come that these
people can be placed in a position of self-support?" He replied
to us, with deep feeling, "Only the good God or the great
government of the United States will answer that question." I
hope and believe that the good God by the great government of
the United States will answer that question.
I shall refer to these horrible things no further. They are
there. God pity me, I have seen them; they will remain in my
mind forever--and this is almost the twentieth century. Christ
died nineteen hundred years ago, and Spain is a Christian
nation. She has set up more crosses in more lands, beneath more
skies, and under them has butchered more people than all the
other nations of the earth combined. Europe may tolerate her
existence as long as the people of the Old World wish. God grant
that before another Christmas morning the last vestige of
Spanish tyranny and oppression will have vanished from the
Western Hemisphere!...
The time for action has come. No greater reason for it can exist
to-morrow than exists to-day. Every hour's delay only adds
another chapter to the awful story of misery and death. Only one
power can intervene--the United States of America. Ours is the
one great nation in the world, the mother of American republics.
She holds a position of trust and responsibility toward the
peoples and affairs of the whole Western Hemisphere. It was her
glorious example which inspired the patriots of Cuba to raise
the flag of liberty in her eternal hills. We cannot refuse to
accept this responsibility which the God of the universe has
placed upon us as the one great power in the New World. We must
act! What shall our action be?
Against the intervention of the United States in this holy cause
there is but one voice of dissent; that voice is the voice of
the money-changers. They fear war! Not because of any Christian
or ennobling sentiment against war and in favor of peace, but
because they fear that a declaration of war, or the intervention
which might result in war, would have a depressing effect upon
the stock market. Let them go. They do not represent American
sentiment; they do not represent American patriotism. Let them
take their chances as they can. Their weal or woe is of but
little importance to the liberty-loving people of the United
States. They will not do the fighting; their blood will not
flow; they will keep on dealing in options on human life. Let
the men whose loyalty is to the dollar stand aside while the men
whose loyalty is to the flag come to the front.
Mr. President, there is only one action possible, if any is
taken; that is, intervention for the independence of the island.
But we cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of
force, and force means war; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene
on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love,
"Peace on earth, good will toward men." Not peace on earth at
the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men
who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their
fellow-men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. I believe in
the doctrine of peace; but, Mr. President, men must have liberty
before there can come abiding peace.
Intervention means force. Force means war. War means blood. But
it will be God's force. When has a battle for humanity and
liberty ever been won except by force? What barricade of wrong,
injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force?
Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great
Magna Charta; force put life into the Declaration of
Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation;
force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastile
and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly
crime; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and
marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force
held the broken line of Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at
Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights; force
marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the
valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox;
force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made
"niggers" men. The time for God's force has come again. Let the
impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the
song:--
"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea.
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.
While God is marching on."
Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others may plead
for further diplomatic negotiation, which means delay; but for
me, I am ready to act now, and for my action I am ready to
answer to my conscience, my country, and my God.
--JAMES MELLEN THURSTON.
