The Voice and Spiritual Education Part 6

NOTE 7, PAGE 101.

Legouve, in his 'L'Art de la lecture,' chap. vii, 'Les vers libres,'

says: les vers libres out un rhythme comme les vers alexandrins, comme les vers des strophes, seulement c'est un rhythme cache. Ils obeissent a une regle mysterieuse, mais reelle, que vous ne trouverez dans aucun traite de rhetorique, mais qui est ecrite dans l'imagination de tous les poetes de genie. Voila pourquoi les vers libres du dix-septieme siecle sont excellents, et ceux du dix-huitieme, sauf quelques pieces de Voltaire, mediocres; les poetes n'ont pas devine le secret.

NOTE 8, PAGE 114.

_Socrates._ I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the att.i.tude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything, and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer.

And when they have been once written down, they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not; and if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves. _Phaedrus._ That again is most true. _Socrates._ Is there not another kind of word or speech far better than this, and having far greater power--a son of the same family, but lawfully begotten? _Phaedrus._ Whom do you mean, and what is his origin?

_Socrates._ I mean an intelligent word graven in the soul of the learner, which can defend itself, and knows when to speak and when to be silent. _Phaedrus._ You mean the living word of knowledge which has a soul, and of which the written word is properly no more than an image?

_Socrates._ Yes, of course, that is what I mean.--_Plato, Phaedrus, 275 D, 276, Dr. Jowett's translation._

NOTE 9, PAGE 121.

He refers probably to articles in Punch, contained in the 2d volume for the year 1887, pp. 25, 37, 64, _et al._