READING ALOUD.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVIII, Issue 16883, 2 August 1919, Page 9

READING ALOUD.

I To lie able to read aloud is a accamplishnient, though one vvhica of late yoais has been undervalued. Jn clie days when women spent a good deal oi time- by the fire* and took pleasure in needlework, reading, working, and tea filled a. pleasant afternoon. Many mothers read systematically every day to their children, and not a tew men ' either listened ox read aloud m the evening when .they had nothing better to do. Some of the laltter, though they were ready readers, were impatient listeners. They wanted to got on taster, they said, and the more the book interested them the more they longed to 'lake it out oi" the reader's hands. They were occasionally persons of dramatic gift, and perhaps their critical faculty as well as their impatience unfitted them for the part of audience. Generally speaking, however, women read the best, and scores of people remember now with' peculiar vividness and pleasure the novels and the poetry which their mothers read to them in their teens. They preserve a delightful recollection of Scott, Thackorar, the Urontesrand Disraeli, even though they may-confess that they never now take* them down from the shelves. No one, wc would-remark, by war of parenthesis. >" "preserves a recollection" of Miss Austen. We,believe she is "the, only' great- English writer . of whom it, might that 'no one v ever ..read her'with-any appreciation and-read'her only once. Her lovers read her "at intervals" all 'their ; . lives. But to go back tq,the art of reading aloud. The first-essential is a pleasant voice. "We have, however, known readers who fancied toheir/ own reading, and who possessed, no other qualification. The effect was monotonous, and even soporific. We should say that the two most difficult things to read really well are the newspaper, and the Bible. The easiest thing t 0 read is, of course, fiction. Poetry is difficult. 'Philosophy and other studious stuff requires little* besides intelligence and practice.' hi this case the listener wants nothing but to know what is in the book, t.nd not to be irritated by stumbling cr confused by obvious incomprehension. Jt is strange that the reading of the Bible aloud in an acceptable manner should present—apparently—almost insuperable difficulties. It is written in the finest English of the finest period. It concerns subjects of universal and undying interest. It is 'endeared to every listener by tradition and recollection. But. the evidence proves it hard to read well. Men specially interested in philosophy and religion, specially trained 1 in.Hebrew ard Greek literature, specially anxious to bring the truths of. Scripture homo to their audience, read it for the most part abominably badly: AVe cannot insult them by supposing their weekly task an easy one. AVe cannot, on tlie other hand,' deny t that the Old and New Testaments offer extraordinary scope for fine reading.' The .task of the curate at the lectern is like the task of the executant before, the piano. The one has great literature before the other great music. The audience waits for his interpretation. As a rule, with many and marked exceptions, the curate runs through l his work in such a mechanical and uninterested manner as would empty a concert-hall if imi-

tated by his bruther-artisl.v Ha reads heroic passages as though thev Mere dull, meditative passages of the- highest inspiration as though they vere parish notices, arguments as ciib-and-dried snippets of dogmatism, and .shrewd proverbs as sacred poetry. How can he like to seem so indifferent to tho Book w hence his Creed and liis ritual have been digged? Of course he would say that he was nob indifferent, that reverence for the sacred text as a whole iorbids any effort to emphasis? the sojular 'oeauty of its parts. The a r giiment is not perhaps quite so sillj- as it sounds. The mind of man demands an act of woiship. All such acts tend in time to become mechanical and superstitious. The Reformers thought to do away with such acts. Thoy dreaded their degeneracy into mere lioeus-pocus. Search the Scriptures, xliey urged, and away with crosses and candles, prostrations and hells and beads. At first men put their A\holc hearts and souls into the reading of the Bible. Then they began to reid it as a duty; then as a sort of ritual. They minced it up into texts, and administered it _ to themselves and others in convenient form. Such superstition was tiie inevitable result of the doctrine of verbal inspiration. The doctrine is dead, but it remains enshrined in a custom, a custom endeared by laziness, ecclesiastical vanity ,and self-conscious shyness. Half the men who read t' l9 Bible in church simply do not try to read well." However, it is easy to be over-critical. Sacred droning may be verv dull hut it remains true ,that great "literatura should not 'oe . read aloud like little- literature. Some reverence for its greatness should appear, and a colloquial tone may well be very offensive to an audience bound to its" seats. The way to avoid it, hovevcr, is surely not to determine to destroy tlie sense. - It is true that the whole congregation have Bibles and can read for themselves, but that' is no reason why tho Lessons should be "taken as read" and run, throng* without the slightest apparent Interest in order to give the people tho rest of Slitting down for a-, virile. Even this method cannot make the reading of the" Qospel of none effect, "but it makes nonsense ,of - whole chapters of the Epistles. A good many young people not brought up'to reverence the Bible as "their fathers did come 'home from church declaring that' ; thos.e chapters are nons"ensc.' It* is a" terrible pity, even from \i literary point of view, tha'c countenance should be given to such ignorance. Take, for instance the early chapters of the First Epistle to the-Romans. Carelessly read verse by verse, with pauses between the artificial divisions and no regard to the eager style and breathless parenthesis the Apostle, and we defy the listener to-make head or tail of them. If any one will read them out aloud to himself he will find, an apology for natural religion of immense value to tho preacher of modern Christianity. Jr he wants to give the whole sense to an audience, he will nded to practice diligently, and lemember that Jus sneers flection, but surely if it / s his of | c £, buaiießß.to t opea St. Paul's mind to t^reir- th6tr ° Üble - sho^^oe

Light' is often thrown upon obsru™ o Ser and 1° drowning as hot ciearei and less great than did those of rW f S many of those who in their youth dil ated upon, us obscurilty,, deprecated t e extravagant, P ra.se of him,'and refused to read him, have wow .revised their judgment- They say that while they do not always understand" thev are conforced to admire. Let them cease hunting for illusions' and trv reading aloud. They will find tho delightful passages longer and 'the jarring and dark ones infinitely less than they imagine as they* glance down the pairo in search of 'gems/ Poetry ought," we" believe, to be read r.loud. Its original - connection with song and with company demands its interpretation by the-yoice. Again, no one wants to be quick, over poetry Those who like it at .ill will-listen to it in patience. How much value to Civo to the rhythm is. of course, tho firs.!> question which the - reader must put to himself. The present writer always listens with greatest pleasure to those who overemphasise, rather than underemphasise the rhyme. "He knew, however, of o-ne "reader who- gave it no emphasis at all. He was a parson and a real lover of the poets, and ib is undeniable that he read" we'll; but one of his hearers ait leasU-was always distracted by the menltal effort tv> preserve the muß'c of the The Victorians, led by Tennyson, went to the other extreme. Their poetry-readinc became a sort of charit. The intensity of their enjoyment of 'the words before them was evident, and did sometimes perhaps communicate itself to !tfi6ir hearers. From a distance the sound was most peculiar: indeed, ib was irresistibly cpmio. Those jiQt_ accustomed to hear it wordered jvhat on.ear-Ui the.acunds portended—wliether they came, man or an animal, and witnessed to pleasure or distre=s. A se'f-oonscious generation is ,not likely to follow their esamp-'e A.V. the-sarao. we think thev erred upon the rijht- liur". Poetry read to oneself may give full measure op pleasure to 1 the really pofitic. Som« musical neople fird the grentest dei'in-ht in rending a PL-ore. B".t the miss of +he world wants to heir thft sounds, net nnlv mimfcillv to internret,»theiV indication. Lyrical' pqetr.v at least should h°: in. some sense sst J;-> music •v.-iirip of a good reading-voice.—"Spec-tator."