Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/146

128 by description and narration, strive not only for concreteness and vividness but also for truth, and will disdain the artful method of misrepresentation to produce desired emotional effects.

A third qualification is that the speaker should in detailed description and narration have respect to the mental attitudes and states of his hearers. He may with the best intention introduce details which, while unimportant to the true interpretation of the incident, will spoil the effect by exciting in some of his hearers a feeling quite different from that which he intends; and a story which will call forth one emotion in one person may stir a very different one in others. To many persons the stories of the sayings and doings of drunken men are very amusing; to others they may be disgusting, and to some who have had tragical experiences in connection therewith, they may be inexpressibly painful. Mr. Wyche, president of the American Story Tellers League, says he found that "Uncle Remus" stories, so irresistibly humorous to audiences of White people, were not well received by Negro audiences, because the negroes interpreted them as a sort of reflection on their race.

(2) But there is another quality of style which is of great importance in arousing feeling. Rhythm of speech is hardly inferior to the pictorial quality of the words as a means of kindling feeling. The whole universe of experience—i.e., the universe as experienced—is rhythmical. There are recurring periods in the solar system. The year, the month, the day, each has its periodicity. There are longer and shorter rhythms in the history of mankind, and each human life has rhythms, and rhythms within rhythms. The vibrations of atoms; the waves of ether which cause the sensations of light, and of the atmosphere which cause sound; the movements of the winds, of the waters of the sea; the variations of the weather; geological periods and cycles of climatic change—all are rhythmical. Rhythm runs through all things which come within the scope of man's experience. His mental processes are rhythmical;