memory for declamation, it should be perfectly committed, before it is spoken ; as any labor of recollection is certainly fatal to freedom, and variety, and force in speaking. In general it were well that the same piece should be subsequently once or more repeated, with a view to adopt the suggestions of the Instructer. The selected pieces are short, because, for the purpose of improvement in elocution, a piece of four or five minutes, is better than one of fifteen. And more advance may be made, in managing the voice and countenance, by speaking, several times, a short speech, though an old one, like that of Brutus on the death of Cæsar, (if it is done with due care each time to correct what was anniss,) than in speaking many long pieces, however spirited or new, which are but half committed, and in the delivery of which all scope of feeling and adaptation of manner, are frustrated by labor of memory. The attempt to speak with this indolent, halting preparation, is in all respects worse than nothing. arvarnarvarnarvarno encanananananananananananananananananananan KEY OF INFLECTION. KEY OF MODULATION, denotes monotone. ( o ) high. () slow. ) rhetorical pause. iconanananananananananananan marananana CONTENTS. page. CHAP. I. READING : its connexion with speaking Difficulties from the genius of written language 15 All directions subsidiary to expression of feeling 18 Sect. 1. Importance of a good articulation Sect. 2. Causes of defective articulation Difficulty of many consonant sounds Immediate succession of similar sounds Tendency to slide over unaccented vowels CHAP. III. TONES AND INFLECTIONS Sect. 1. Tones considered as a language of emotion Sect. 2. Utility of systematic attention to Tones and In- Sect. 3. Description of Inflections Sect. 4. Classification of Inflections RULE I. Influence of disjunctive or on Inflection RULE II. Of the Direct Question and its Answer . RULE III. Of Negation opposed to Affirmation RULE IV. Of the Pause of Suspension RULE V. Of the influence of Tender Emotion on the voice. 54 RULE VI. Of the Penultimate Pause RULE VII. Of the Indirect Question and its Answer RULEVIII. The language of Authority and of Surprise 57 Antithetic or Relative Emphatic Stress The spirit of Emphasis to be cultivated A habit of discrimination as to Tones and Inflection 99 Strength of voice important to a public speaker 107 Depends on good organs of speech 108 And on the proper exercise of these organs 109 Directions for preserving and strengthening them 110 Sect. 10. The Reading of Poetry Remarks on the reading of Psalms and Hymns in PART. I. Principles of Rhetorical Action Sect. 1. Action as significant from nature 152 Sources of these, viz. personal defects, diffidence, imitation . 152 Mismanagement of the eye and of attitude . 155 Gesture may want appropriateness and discrimination 158 |
