e words of St. Paul, 'the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned.'

What is generally understood in the schools as a thorough study of a
work of genius, is occupied quite exclusively with the language and with
that part of the subject-matter which can be intellectually formulated.
That part which demands a spiritual response and which it is the main
object of reading to vocalize for the purpose of calling forth such
response, is not included in the so-called thorough study. The latter
may do much, indeed, to shut off any spiritual response which a student
might give if he were not subjected to such study. In this statement no
depreciation of scholarship is meant to be implied. Let us have the most
thorough scholarship possible; but it must not become an end to itself;
it must be a means to the higher end of intellectual and spiritual
life.

What chiefly afflicts a cultivated hearer, in 'elocution,' is the
conspicuous absence of spiritual assimilation on the part of the reader.
At best, he voices only what the eye of an ordinary reader could take
in, and leaves the all-important part to his face, arms, and legs, and
various attitudes of the body. But the spiritual in literature must be
addressed to the ear. 'A spirit aerial informs the cell of Hearing,'
says Wordsworth, in his great poem, 'On the power of sound.'

Reading, I have said, is not acting. It is the acting which usually
accompanies the reading or recitation of the professional elocutionist
which cultivated people especially dislike. When they wish to see
acting, they prefer going to a theatre. When they listen to reading,
they want serious interpretative vocalization; only that and nothing
more is necessary, unless it be a spontaneous and graceful movement of
the hands, occasionally, such as one makes in animated conversation.

Again, the most elegant way of vocally interpreting a poem, is to read
it from a book, rather than to recite it. Recitation has much to do with
this acting business. In fact, elocutionists recite in order to have
their arms free to act--to illustrate the thought they are expressing.
Thought should not be helped out by gesture. Gesture results, or should
result, from emotion, and should, therefore, be indefinite. Mimetic
gesture, or mimetic action of any kind, is rarely, if ever, in place. If
a speaker, addres