The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 1, January, 1864. Various
castanets. You could hear the hiss and seething of the sea alongside, and see it flash by in sudden white patches of phosphorescent foam, while all over head was black with the flying scud. The English second mate was stamping with vexation, and, with all his h's misplaced, storming at the men: ''An'somely the weather mainbrace—'an'somely, I tell you!—'Alf a dozen of you clap on to the main sheet here—down with 'im!—D'y'see 'ere's hall like a midshipman's bag—heverythink huppermost and nothing 'andy. 'Aul 'im in, Hi say!' But the sail wouldn't come, though. All the most forcible expressions of the Commination Service were liberally bestowed on the watch. 'Give us the song, men!' sang out the mate, at last—'pull with a will!—together men!—haltogether now!'—And then a cracked, melancholy voice struck up this chant:
'Oh, the bowline, bully, bully bowline,
Oh, the bowline, bowline, HAUL!'
At the last word every man threw his whole strength into the pull—all singing it in chorus, with a quick, explosive sound. And so, jump by jump, the sheet was at last hauled taut.'
It would be well if the philanthropist and utilitarian would stoop to examine these primeval but neglected facts, for there is no doubt that under the healthful and delicious spell of Rhythm a far steadier and greater amount of labor would be cheerfully and happily endured by the working classes. The continuous but rhythmed croon of the negro when at work, the yo-heave-o of the sailor straining at the cordage, the rowing songs of the oarsman, etc., etc., are all suggestive of what might be effected by judicious effort in this direction. But man, ever wiser than his Maker, neglects the intuitions of nature. Rendered conceited by a false education, and heartless by a constant craving for gold, he scorns the simple but deep intuitions which are his surest guide to civilization, health, and cheerfulness. There can be no doubt that the physical exercise so distasteful to the pale inhabitants of our cities, yet so essential for the preservation of health and life, might be rendered delightful and invigorating through the neglected powers of rhythmical motion. Like Michal, the proud daughter of Saul, who despised King David in her haughty heart when 'she saw him dancing with all his might before the Lord,' we scorn the simple and innocent delights of our nature, and, like Michal, we too are bitterly punished for our mistaken pride of intellect, for, neglecting the rhythmical requisitions of the body, we injure the mind, and may deprave the heart. Virtuously, purely, and judiciously applied to the amusements and artistic culture of a people, we are convinced the power of Rhythm would banish much of that craving for false excitement, for drinks and narcotics, an indulgence in which exerts so fatal an influence over the character and spiritual progress of a nation. It is surely not astonishing that Rhythm should be so pleasant to the senses, when we consider that the laws of order and unity by which it is regulated are the proper aliment of the soul.
Strange pedantries have grown out of the neglect of music as a practical pervading element in modern education. We should endeavor to reform this fault; we should use this powerful engine of healing nature to remove from us the reproach of being merely a shopkeeping and money-making people.
The wildest savage is not insensible to Rhythm. It fires his spirit in the war dance and battle chant, soothes him in the monotonous hum of the pow-wow, and softens him in naive love songs. It is the heart of music, and it can be proved that low and vulgar rhythms have a debasing effect upon the character of a people. 'Let me write the songs of a people,' said a great thinker, 'and I care not who makes its laws:'—if he included the tunes, there was no exaggeration in his thought. Alas! a meretricious age scorns and neglects the true, because it is always simple in its sublimity, and, striving to banish God from His own creation, would also banish nature and joy from the heart! A pedantic age loves all that is pretentious, glaring, and assuming; and Rhythm stoops to rock the cradle of the newborn infant; to soothe the negro in the rice swamp or cotton field; to shape into beauty the national and patriotic songs of a laborious but contented peasantry, as among the Sclaves—but what cares the age for the happiness of the race? 'Put money in thy purse,' is its consolation and lesson for humanity.
The beat of the healthful heart is in unison with the feelings of the hour. Agitation makes it fitful and broken, excitement accelerates, and sorrow retards it. And this fact should be the model for all poetical and musical rhythm.
To show how readily we associate feelings with different orders of sound, let us suppose we are passing the night somewhere, where a stranger, utterly unknown to us, occupies a room from which we can hear the sound of his footsteps. Suppose that through the tranquil hours of the night we hear his measured tread falling in equally accented and monotonous spondees, it is certain that a quick imagination will at once associate this deliberate tread with the state of mind in the unknown from which it will believe it to proceed, and will immediately suggest that the stranger is maturing some great design of heavy import to his future peace.
Should the character of the spondaic tread suddenly change, should the footsteps become rapid, eager, and broken, we look upon the term of meditation and doubt as over, the resolve as definitely fixed, and the unknown as restlessly longing for the hour of its fulfilment.
When we hear steps resembling dactyls, anapaests, and choriambs thrown hurriedly together, broken by irregular pauses, we begin to build a whole romance on the steps of the stranger; we infer from them moments of grave deliberation; the languor consequent upon overwrought thought; renewed effort; resolve; alternations of passion; hope struggling with despair; until all at last seems merged in impatient longing for the hour of anticipated victory.
Nor has the imagination been alone in its strange workings; it has whispered, as it always does, its secrets to the heart, and succeeded in arousing its ever-ready affections, so that we cannot help feeling a degree of interest in the unknown, whose emotions we have followed through the night, reading their history in his alternating footsteps: for sounds impress themselves immediately upon the feelings, exciting, not abstract or antagonistic thought, but uniting humanity in concrete feeling. (See vol. i.)
As the imagination necessarily associates different feelings with different orders of Rhythm, it is the task of the Poet to select those in the closest conformity with the emotions he is struggling to excite. It is positively certain that we not only naturally and intuitively associate distinctive feelings with different orders of rhythmical sounds, but that varied emotions are awakened by them. Some rhythms inspire calmness, some sublime and stately courage, some energy and aggressive force, some stir the spirit to the most daring deeds, some, as in our maddening Tarantulas, produce a restless excitement through the whole nervous system, some excite mere joyousness, some whisper love through every fibre of the heart, and some lead us in their holy calm and unbroken order to the throne of God. Why is this? We need not look in the region of the understanding for the philosophy of that which is to be found only in the living tide of basic emotions. The pleasure we receive from Rhythm is a feeling. Alternate accentuation and non-accentuation are facts in the living organism of the universe; this may be expressed, not explained. There is an order in the living succession of musical sounds or poetic emotions, which order is expressed by the words 'equality and proportion.' These things are. What more can be said? Do comparisons help us? the waves in the eternal ocean of vitality—the shuttle strokes of the ever-moving loom of creation! Let us take it as it is, and rejoice in it. We cannot tell you why we live—let us be glad that our life is music through every heart-throb!
Rhythm is a species of natural but inarticulate language, in which the thought is never disengaged from the feeling; in language its aim should be to awaken the feeling properly attached to the thought it modulates; it should be the tune of the thought of the Poet. To write a love song in alexandrines, an idyl in hexameters, would be to incarnate the shy spirit of a girl in the brawny frame of a Hercules, to incase the loving soul of a Juliet in a gauntleted Minerva. Genius and deep sympathy with human nature can alone guide the Poet aright in this delicate and difficult path; it lies too near the core of our unconscious being to be susceptible of the trim regularity of rule—he must trust his own intuitions while he studies with care what has already been successfully done by our best poets. We may however remark in passing that if the rhythm be abruptly broken without a corresponding break in the flow of thought or feeling, the reader will be confused, because the outward form has fallen into contradiction with its inner soul, and he discerns the opposition, and knows not with which to sympathize. Such contrarieties