Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/149

 THE EXCITATION OF FEELING 13!

may be respectable words and convey definite and accurate meanings ; but for them the speaker has, as a rule, only one use. If he can utilize them so as to connect the unpleasant feeling-tones which they arouse with some idea or object against which he wishes to create a feeling-disposition, well and good. For that purpose they are very serviceable, and the skilful orator will hold them in reserve for that alone. Now and then, to be sure, a speaker whose words are usually soft and mellifluous may use those of unpleasant sound as a musician does his discords, to emphasize the beauty of his normal speech ; but otherwise he should bar the door of his lips against them.

More important is the arrangement of words and clauses in sentences. Sentence rhythm is, in part, a matter of the collocation of words in such a way that they follow one an other easily in pronunciation, flow into one another without bringing two inharmonious sounds together. This gives fluency of style, which is very pleasing. But of equal if not greater significance are the number of predications in the sentence and the alternation of short and long sentences. It is an interesting fact that each speaker or writer has his own average number of predications in a sentence, his own aver age length of sentences, and his own average alternation of long and short sentences. For instance, a close examina tion of Macaulay s writing shows that the average number of predications in the sentences of his entire History of England is 2 : 30. The average length of the sentences is 23 : 43 words ; and there is an average of thirty-four simple sentences to every hundred. 1 These peculiarities seem to be connected with one s emotional organization and to indicate very accurately the emotional rhythms of his personality; though they are, of course, in some measure subject to modi fication through culture. And yet if any man s written or spoken productions be examined, these proportions are so constant and general that they must indicate an organization of the emotional nature so fundamental that they can only

1 See Scott s &quot; Psychology of Public Speaking,&quot; pp. 136-7.

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