The Principles of English Versification | Page 6

sort of metronome which will beat out the rhythm according as
we regulate it. And it goes without saying that with this we can not
only note the rhythm in our songs or spoken verse or movements, but
also perceive it in the sounds and movements of other persons and
other things.
This metronome of attention functions, indeed, still more simply. With
attention, as with all the psycho-physiological processes, effort
alternates with rest: it grows stronger and weaker, contracts and
expands in turn. This pulse of attention varies in different persons
according to the peculiar rhythm of the organism. In the same person,
under normal conditions, it remains nearly constant. It is always subject
to modification by the psycho-physiological conditions of the moment,
especially by the emotions and by external circumstances. In a series of
identical equidistant stresses, those which coincide with the pulse of
attention seem the stronger: this is what is called subjective rhythm.
Since this coincidence is nearly always somewhat inexact, there results
an easy accommodation of the pulse of attention, although even in the
subjective rhythm there has already occurred an objective influence
capable of affecting us sensibly.[4]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [4] Paul
Verrier, Essai sur les Principes de la Métrique | | Anglaise (Paris,

1909), Deuxieme Partie, Livre II, ch. x, | | pp. 56, 57; and cf. p. 90, n. 1.
| +--------------------------------------------------------------+
Thus we have always at hand both a more or less efficient bodily
metronome in the pulse and in respiration, and also a "cerebral
metronome" capable not only of easy adjustment to different rates of
speed but also of that subtlest of modulations which psychologists call
the 'elastic unit,' and which musicians, though not so definitely or
surely, recognize as tempo rubato.
The sense of rhythm, as has been said, differs remarkably in different
individuals--just as the sense of touch, of smell, of hearing.[5] To some,
rhythm appears chiefly as a series of points of emphasis or stresses
alternating with points of less emphasis or of none at all; such are
called, in scientific jargon, 'stressers.' To others the principal
characteristic of rhythm is the time intervals; such are called 'timers.'
But this is a practical, not a philosophical distinction. For it is the
succession of points of emphasis which even the most aggressive
stresser feels as rhythmic; and succession implies and involves a
temporal element. The stresser's only difficulty is to feel the
approximate equality of the interval. The essential thing, however, is to
understand that, while time is the foundation of speech-rhythm, stress is
its universal adjunct and concomitant.[6]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [5] A simple
experiment will illustrate this. Place two | | persons back to back, so
that they cannot see each other, | | and have them beat time to an
audible melody; as soon as the | | music ceases they will begin to beat
differently. (Verrier, | | II, p. 65.) The difficulty of keeping even a
trained | | orchestra playing together illustrates the same fact. | | | | [6]
"If rhythm means anything to the average individual, it | | means motor
response and a sense of organized time." | | Patterson, p. 14. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
The explanation of this duality is simple. A series of identical tones
[Illustration: Identical notes] etc.

contains a simple objective rhythm. The pronounced timer will feel it
clearly; the extreme stresser will not. Change the series to
[Illustration: Alternate long and short notes] etc.,
or
[Illustration: Alternate longer stressed notes and shorter unstressed
notes] etc.,
and both will feel it; for in the last example both time and stress are
obvious, and in the other the longer notes of the series produce the
effect of stress.[7] Most persons, therefore, with a greater or less degree
of consciousness, allow their physical or cerebral metronome to affect
the simple
[Illustration: Identical notes] etc.,
so that they hear or feel either
[Illustration: Alternate stressed and unstressed notes] etc.,
or
[Illustration] etc.,
It is thus that the clock says tick-tock, tick-tock, the locomotive chu-chu,
chu-chu. Timers are in the minority.
+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | [7] Musicians
often 'dot' a note for the sake of emphasizing | | the accent, especially in
orchestral music and with such | | instruments as the flute, where
variations of stress are | | difficult to produce. |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
A converse phenomenon of the subjective introduction of stress into a
series of identical tones at equal intervals is the subjective 'organization'
of a series of irregular beats. Some do this more easily and naturally
than others, but the tendency is present in all who are not absolutely

rhythm-deaf. The "minute drops from off the eaves" beat out a tune, the
typewriter develops a monotonous song, the public speaker 'gets his
stride' and continues in a sing-song.
Thus, when there are equal intervals