ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

they float southwards. But Humboldt and lose the advantage that comparison with others have sufficiently proved that they are familiar scenes would give us in realizing his fragments of enormous glaciers, which fill descriptions. But some of them read as if the valleys of Greenland, and advance in they might be applied, with slight altertheir slow course actually into the ocean:- ations, and some reduction of scale to the "The continent, as one might call Green-rocky shores of North Devon and Cornwall. land, does not shed the bulk of its central A visit, however, to the native region of icewaters in fluid rivers, but discharges them bergs is not as easy and pleasant as a tour to the ocean in solid, crystalline, slowly pro- on the Cornish coast or in Norway, though gressing streams. They flow, or rather this has to be gathered, rather than directly march, with irresistible, mighty force, and learned, from Mr. Noble's book. He dwells far-resounding footsteps, crossing the shore- only on the agreeable portions of the expeline-a perpetual procession of blocklike dition, and omits to chronicle the disapmasses, flat or diversified with hill and hollow on the top, advancing upon the sea pointments from fogs and rain, the hard until too deeply immersed longer to resist living, and other discomforts necessarily inthe buoyant power and pressure of the sur- cidental to the voyage, only alluding to them rounding waters, when they break upwards, casually in one or two places. "The sparkand float suspended in the vast oceanic ling points," he says, "of the life of this abyss. The van of the glacial host, previously marked off by fissures into ranks,

rushes from the too close embrace of its

new element, and wheels away, an iceberg the glistening planet of the sea, whose mazy, tortuous orbit none can calculate but Him who maps the unseen currents of the main." Whether all icebergs are formed in this way—whether some are not caused by the breaking up in spring of the icy surface of

the ocean itself cannot be certainly known, but the authority of those who have most

studied the matter points to the former con

clusion. The masses are usually so thick that we can hardly believe them to be the result of one winter's frosts, and the extreme hardness, heaviness, and fineness of grain of the ice of which they are composed seem to show that long periods of time and immense pressure are necessary to their forma

tion.

Besides the novelty of the icebergs, the volume before us will be, to most readers, an introduction to a totally unknown land, and one which, rude and barren as it is, offers to the explorer the temptation of coast scenery almost unrivalled for savage grandeur. The author is very fond of drawing parallels between the new scenes he is describing on the shores of Labrador, etc., and well-known places in his own country; and to the American reader, this, of course, helps greatly towards conveying a lively and accurate picture. Unfortunately for us, he has never visited England, as one or two ludicrous mistakes about English geography would sufficiently show; and therefore we

novel voyage are for the reader's eye; the chill and the weariness and the sea-sickness, and the mass of things lumpish and brown in the light of common day, are for that tomb of the Capulets away back in the fields of one's own memory." This is the true principle on which to write a book of travels

to omit all the merely personal details and repetitions which must find their way into the traveller's diary, but are wearisome to the reader, and to record only those things which are instructive or interesting. Of one thing, however, merely personal, he speaks very often,-excusably enough, for it must have been too continually in his thoughts to be long absent from his manuscript,—and that is, the unpleasant subject of sea-sickness. Both the author and the painter seem to have been such continual martyrs to this misery, that we only wonder how they had courage to persevere in their undertaking; and we owe them the more thanks for having, in the face of this as well as so many other obstacles, brought home such valuable and interesting spoils from the Northern Seas.

From The Examiner.

MR. NOBLE, who is an American clergyman, has the great advantage of treading new ground, or-should we rather say ?-of ploughing new seas. He tells the story of an expedition upon which he set out in the summer of 1859, "in company with a distinguished landscape painter," whose initial is C. The trip, as the title-page explains,

was along the north-eastern coast of British shadow-like along in strong contrast with America, and its object was the study of ice- the surrounding dark, marked the places bergs. The plan was as good as it was novel. where the monsters were gliding below. Perhaps we, in England, may never see the When their broad, blackish backs were above pictures on behalf of which it was under-ruffle of snowy surf, formed by the breaking the waves, there was frequently a ring or of the swell, around the edges of the fish."

taken; but we are very glad to have Mr. Noble's descriptions in words, illustrated as they are by half a dozen really beautiful lithAbout icebergs there is much to be told. ographs. They are of every possible size and shape,Where not too full of irrelevant gossip, almost of every color, sometimes blue by rethe book is very pleasantly written. Weflection of the sky's hue, sometimes a flamcould dispense with the author's notes of admiration concerning a Welsh young lady who was, for a little while, one of his fellow-travellers; and we do not care to know that he supped with the Bishop of St. John's, and discovered him to be a friend and admirer of Mr. Keble. But there is not much of this, and all that Mr. Noble writes about the strange things that he saw is very entertaining. He witnessed other things than icebergs. On one occasion,

ing red by reason of the sun's rays, sometimes as green as the waters which beat against them. Sometimes all the colors are visible at the same time on different parts of a single berg; and they blend and interchange with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope. Everybody takes delight, at times, in watching the quick transformations of the clouds, or in gazing at the fancy pictures formed by dying embers; but what are these to the pleasures of following the iceberg's variations of shape? Shifting its place in the sea, it shows at every minute some fresh change; at one time having the semblance of a grand Corinthian temple, then quickly shifting the likeness to a Gothic cathedral, and before another minute is passed taking the shape of a polar bear, or startling the observer by its sudden assumption of a human guise. These are the variations resulting simply from change of view; others, and almost as rapid, arise from actual modifications of shape. Travelling from its northern home towards the warmer south, its gradual melting produces wonderful results and often stupendous catastrophes. Let Mr. Noble describe to us two scenes, which, allowing for some unconscious exaggeration, must have been singularly grand. The first is about changes of shape:

"At the foot of the precipice were four or five whales, from thirty to fifty feet in length apparently. We could have tossed a pebble upon them. At times abreast, and then in single file, round and round they went, now rising with a puff followed by a wisp of vapor, then plunging into the deep again. There was something in their large movements very imposing, and yet very graceless. There seemed to be no muscular effort, no exertion of any force from within, and no more flexibility in their motions than if they had been built of timber. They appeared to move very much as a wooden whale might be supposed to move down a mighty rapid, rolling and plunging and borne along irresistibly by the current. As they rose, we could see their mouths occasionally, and the lighter colors of the skin below. As they went under, their huge, black tails, great winged things not unlike the screw-wheel of a propeller, tipped up above the waves. Now "We are bearing up under the big berg and then one would give the water a good as closely as we dare. To our delight, what round slap, the noise of which smote sharply we have been wishing and watching for is upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an actually taking place; loud explosions with alley. It was a novel sight to watch them heavy falls of ice, followed by the cataractin their play, or labor rather; for they were like roar, and the high, thin seas, wheeling feeding upon the capelin, pretty little fishes away beautifully crested with sparkling that swarm along these shores at this partic-foam. If it is possible, imagine the effect ular season. We could track them beneath upon the beholder: This precipice of ice, the surface about as well as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast with the fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep purple. Above the whales the water was green, a darker green as they descended, a lighter green as they came up. Large oval spots of changeable green water, moving silently and

with tremendous cracking, is falling towards us with a majestic and awful motion. Down sinks the long water-line into the black deep; down go the porcelain crags, and galleries of glassy sculptures, a speechless and awful baptism. Now it pauses and returns: up rise sculptures and crags streaming with

the shining, white brine; up comes the great, | the roses of Damascus. In this delicious encircling line, followed by things new and strange, crags, niches, balconies, and caves; up, up it rises, higher and higher still, crossing the very breast of the grand ice, and all bathed with rivulets of gleaming foam. Over goes the summit, ridge, pinnacles and all, standing off obliquely in the opposite air. Now it pauses in its upward roll: back it comes again, cracking, cracking, cracking, 'groaning out harsh thunder' as it comes, and threatening to burst, like a mighty bomb, into millions of glittering fragments. The spectacle is terrific and magnificent. Emotion is irrepressible, and peals of wild hurras burst forth from all."

dye it stands embalmed-only for a minute, though; for now the softest dove-colors steal into the changing glory, and turn it all into light and shade on the whitest satin. The bright green waves are toiling to wash it whiter, as they roll up from the violet sea, and explode in foam along the broad alabaster. Power and Beauty, hand in hand, bathing the bosom of Purity. I need not pause to explain how all this is; but so it is, and many times more, in the passing away of the sunshine and the daylight. It is wonderful! I had never dreamed of it, even while I have been reading of icebergs well described. As I sit and look at this broken work of the Divine fingers,-only a shred

The second is about changes of color at broken from the edge of a glacier, vast as it

sunset :

"The moments for which we have been waiting are now passing, and the berg is immersed in almost supernatural splendors. The white alpine peak rises out of a field of delicate purple, fading out on one edge into pale sky-blue. Every instant changes the quality of the colors. They flit from tint to tint, and dissolve into other hues perpetually, and with a rapidity impossible to describe or paint. I am tempted to look over my shoulder into the north, and see if the 'merry dancers' are not coming, so marvellously do the colors come and go. The blue and the purple pass up into peach-blow and pink. Now it blushes in the last look of the sun-red blushes of beauty-tints of the roseate birds of the south-the complexion of

[ocr errors]

is,-I whisper these words of Revelation: and hath washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' It hangs before us, with the sea and the sky behind it, like some great robe made in heaven. Where the flowing folds break into marble-like cliffs, on the extreme wings of the berg, an inward green seems to be pricking through a fine straw tint, spangled with gold."

We are tempted to quote a good deal more from Mr. Noble's volume. Although overwrought in style, it is a book to ice the imagination pleasantly during hot summer days, and to be read with particular delight, whenever winter comes, before a blazing fire and within reach of the poker.

PARSON BROWNLOW.-In the last number of this new Government. But I have committed the Knoxville Whig, issued Oct. 26, the patriot grave, and I really fear unpardonable offences. Brownlow publishes his farewell, stating that, as I have refused to make war upon the Governhe is to be indicted before a Confederate jury, ment of the United States. I have refused to the publication of his paper will necessarily be publish to the world false and exaggerated acsuspended. He steadfastly refuses to give a counts of the several engagements had between bond to the rebels for good behavior, and says the contending armies; I have refused to write he is ready to start for jail at a moment's warn-out and publish false versions of the origin of ing. He also says :

"Not only so, but there I am prepared to lie, in solitary confinement, until I waste away because of imprisonment, or die from old age. Stimulated by a consciousness of innocent uprightness, I will submit to imprisonment for life, or die at the end of a rope, before I will make any humiliating concession to any power on earth.

"I have committed no offence; I have not shouldered arms against the Confederate Government, or the State, or encouraged others to do so; I have discouraged rebellion, publicly and privately; I have not assumed a hostile attitude toward the civil or military authorities of

this war, and of the breaking up of the best govwill continue to do, if it cost me my life. Nay, ernment the world ever knew; and all this I when I agree to do such things, may a righteous God palsy my right arm, and may the earth open and close in upon me forever.'

EPIGRAM.

BRITTANIA's breast with pity swells

For slaves, their wrongs are ne'er forgetten;
Poor maid! we fear her bosom's swell
Is but the rise and fall of-Cotton.

-Vanity Fair.

From The London Review.
ELOCUTION.

proper treatment, may not be made available for every purpose of public speaking (we do WHETHER the movement initiated by not say singing, though much might be Bishop Wigram will be followed up by oth- taught on that point). A certain amount of ers in his position, and whether it will have vocal sonorousness is given to every human all the effect which he desires in the partic-being, and what is now too little known is, ular sphere which comes within the scope of that that amount is far more equally divided his personal observation or not, there is no between different individuals than is supdoubt that it furnished a hint which was posed. The power of sound awarded to each greatly needed in this quarter, as well as in the reading-desk and pulpit.

voice is far more equal than the public has any notion of, but it is differently placed in each,-there lies the real mystery, and, in fact, the only one. To discover where lies the power of each voice, and to reveal it to its possessor, there is the master's art. It is no use to talk of a "few simple directions," of "lessons in elocution." A "few simple directions" will do nothing, nor will "lessons in elocution" do much towards remedying the evil. Elocution is partially taught, and there has been at King's College a teacher of elocution since 1846. Teaching elocution to untrained voices, is about as reasonable as it would be to attempt putting a wild horse, fresh caught from the Pampas, through the passages of la haute école. The secret of the whole matter resides in the voice itself, which is not under control. Bring the voioe under control, and the elocution master is comparatively little needed, and indeed only needed for such persons as are deprived by nature of a proper sum of intelligence, and of a due comprehension of the value of words.

It can hardly be denied that, while we cultivate our other faculties with great care and pains, our voices are absolutely uncared for in our modern education. Everything else is attended to; people are "trained" till there is very little of nature left about them, but the instrument of speech is neglected. Gymnastics bend the body, riding, swimming, dancing force the limbs to assume a kind of vigorous grace, or at all events, to be perfectly under control, but, as to the voice, it may run wild, or become extinct, or, no matter what may happen to it, worse luck to its possessor. Nobody knows and nobody cares what comes of it, and nobody cares because nobody knows. In no country is speech so frequently required as in England, yet those who have to speak are left to the mercy of Providence as to what regards that organ by whose means they are to act upon the senses of their fellow-creatures, and bear persuasive words in upon their minds. A man becomes a lawyer, or a cler- There is no human voice (or, at least, the gyman, or a member of Parliament, and if exceptions to this rule are so rare that they he has a "good voice" he is a lucky fellow, need not be taken into account), which is but he enters upon his business without any not gifted with the degree of power requiknowledge of what are his vocal faculties, and site to make itself distinctly audible in the often dscovers at his public début in his career largest cathedral or meeting hall known. that Nature has, as he chooses to imagine, de- If properly pitched, its merest whisper will prived him of what is called a "good voice." be heard. But the natural pitch of a voice Now the very terms employed in descant- is the one thing to ascertain. Loudness is ing upon this subject are absurd, and show not sonorousness, and a man may shout himhow deplorably great is the general ignorance. People are only very exceptionally born with a "good voice" for public purposes. Both for singing and for speaking in public the voice positively requires to be exercised in a particular way-to be educated. Unless in the rarest possible instances there is no voice that would not be much the bet-tal celebrities, whether of stage, bar, tribune, ter for proper training, and whose best qualities would not by that training be made durable up to a late period of life, and let this be remembered, there is no voice that, by

self hoarse, and be but faintly heard. Now, above all, let no one imagine that this is an innovation, a new study; it is one of the very oldest of any. The ancients knew of and practised it; the Italians, up to a century ago, have written scores of treatises upon it; and few among the great continen

or pulpit, but have even in our own times subjected their voices to a laborious and special training. Mirabeau and Talma are both brilliant examples; and the speaker whose

mere vocal capacities are almost unequalled | which are necessary to make a public speak in our day, M. Berryer, would, were he ques-er's mode of speaking agreeable. The same tioned, tell a long tale of what must be done principles will, of course, apply to the stage, to bring a voice perfectly under control. to the bar, to the lecture-room, to the pulThroughout the entire military world, the pit; but everywhere it is the cause that must late Czar Nicholas was celebrated for his be studied, not the effect-the voice, and the wonderful way of giving the word of com- voice only, is the cause. mand. Clear and distinct, it was carried to Perhaps the first error to be destroyed is distances impossible to others; but this was that of the naturalness of public speech. the effect of study, and of having learnt the It is natural to man to express his thoughts, true pitch of his voice, and where lay its nat- by speech, and to exchange them with one ural sonorousness. Nothing is more utterly or more of his fellow-creatures; it is not useless than to run after tones which do not natural that a man should hold forth to a belong to you, yet it is precisely what nine- crowd, that is a product of civilization; tenths of all singers and speakers are per- therefore, that has to do with art, and repetually doing. In their efforts to reach a quires study and proper training of the orlayer of sound which is absolutely and for- gan brought into play. Now, the voice, in ever unattainable to them, they strain and speaking, as in singing, is, as it were, double; stretch their own voices till they crack or run it has with it its own "circle of resonance," rusty, or in some other manner fail. On as it is technically termed. Within that cirthe other hand, whoever will, under proper cle it may be developed to an all but incredguidance, seek to develop his own natural ible extent; out of it no human power can vocal powers, will, we maintain, arrive at the enable it to proceed one inch. Yet this is command of any audience in any enclosed the unnatural and impossible process to space. which the human voice is mostly condemned For those who have cared to study the ca-now-a-days, when any trouble whatever is pacities of the human voice, nothing can be taken with it. more curious-alternately amusing and pain- Abroad, these studies are being here and ful-than the deplorable ignorance evinced there revived, and in Belgium and France by almos nublic speaker in this coun- and Milan, there are men learned in that try. Let us for a moment revert to the art of "training the voice" which was in House of Commons. Where are the men such high honor formerly. With a pupil of whom one would most wish to listen to, did average intelligence, and one who gives his their mode of utterance not grate on the attention to what he is about, it is by no ear? There is Mr. Disraeli, who labors means a long or tiresome undertaking to after variety of intonation, and whose intona- bring a voice under perfect control. Two tion is excruciatingly false, because he has, things are necessary: to find the pitch, or in fact, no control over his voice; there is natural sonorousness of the voice; and to Sir Robert Peel, who is favored by nature, educate the pupil's ear so that he shall recbut the monotony of whose brazen tones is ognize it. That achieved, the rest is an afdisagreeable in the extreme,-his is a case fair of practice. The voice finds itself so of great natural capacity however, and it is well at ease there where Nature meant it probable that one month's proper training to be, that, after a short time, the slightest —or even less—would put Sir Robert Peel jolt out of its own groove is as painful to in the possession of a vocal excellence to itself and to its possessor as to the liswhich we are, in our day, unaccustomed.teners.

[ocr errors]

Or take an instance of the opposite kind- As to "elocution," we by no means disEarl Russell. Half his speeches are invariably reported as having been guessed at"Lord John was understood to say." We confidently assert that it only required a proper training of the voice to have made "Lord John" perfectly audible always, and to have given him command over the amount of sonorousness and of variety of intonation

dain it; but it comes later, when the instrument is formed by which their true meaning can be awarded to words. Till the instrument is there, all the teachers of elocution in the world are of no use. They and their pupils may feel what is required, but it is not in their power to achieve it; for that whereby it is achieved (and achieved at once and with

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »