McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader Part 12

REMARK.--Practice in accordance with this direction will enable the pupil to secure that fullness and roundness of voice which is exemplified in the hailing of a ship, "ship aho--y;" in the reply of the sailor, when, in the roar of the storm, he answers his captain, "ay--e. ay--e;" and in the command of the officer to his troops, when, amid the thunder of artillery, he gives the order, "ma--rch," or "ha--lt."

This fullness or roundness of tone is secured, by dwelling on the vocal sound, and indefinitely protracting it, The mouth should be opened wide, the tongue kept down, and the aperture left as round and as free for the voice as possible.

It is this artificial rotundity which, in connection with a distinct articulation, enables one who speaks in the open air, or in a very large apartment, to send his voice to the most distant point. It is a certain degree of this quality, which distinguishes declamatory or public speaking or reading from private conversation, and no one can accomplish much, as a public speaker, without cultivating it. It must be carefully distinguished from the "high tone," which is an elevation of pitch, and from "loudness."

or "strength" of voice.

It will be observed that clearness and distinctness of utterance are secured by a proper use of the subvocals and aspirates--these sounds giving to words their shape, as it were; but a clear, full, and well-modulated utterance of the vocals gives to words their fullness.

LONG QUANt.i.tY. (49)

1. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

2. Woe, woe, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem!

3. O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save?

Where was thine arm, O Vengeance! where thy rod, That smote the foes of Zion and of G.o.d?

4. O sailor boy! sailor boy! never again Shall home, love, or kindred thy wishes repay; Unblessed and unhonored, down deep in the main, Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay.

5. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens! When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the work of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

MEDIUM QUANt.i.tY. (50)

1. Between Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose; The spectacles set them, unhappily, wrong; The point in dispute was, as all the world knows, To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

2. Bird of the broad and sweeping wing!

Thy home is high in heaven, Where the wide storms their banners fling, And the tempest clouds are driven.

3. At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk lay dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power.

4. On New Year's night, an old man stood at his window, and looked, with a glance of fearful despair, up the immovable, unfading heaven, and down upon the still, pure, white earth, on which no one was now so joyless and sleepless as he.

SHORT QUANt.i.tY. (51)

1. Quick! or he faints! stand with the cordial near!

2. Back to thy punishment, false fugitive!

3. Fret till your proud heart breaks! Must I observe you? Must I crouch beneath your testy humor?

4. Up drawbridge, grooms! what, warder, ho!

Let the portcullis fall!

5. Quick, man the lifeboat! see yon bark, That drives before the blast!

There's a rock ahead, the fog is dark, And the storm comes thick and fast.

6. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not by myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction, or his mien, however matured by age or modeled by experience.

MOVEMENT. (51)

Movement is the rapidity with which the voice moves in reading and speaking. It varies with the nature of the thought or sentiment to be expressed, and should be increased or diminished as good taste may determine. With pupils generally, the tendency is to read too fast. The result is, reading or speaking in too high a key and an unnatural style of delivery--both of which faults are difficult to be corrected when once formed. The kinds of movement are Slow, Moderate, and Quick.

DIRECTIONS.--Read a selection as slowly us possible, without drawling.

Read it again and again, increasing the rate of movement at each reading, until it can be read no faster without the utterance becoming indistinct.

Reverse this process, reading more and more slowly at each repet.i.tion, until the slowest movement is obtained.

SLOW MOVEMENT. (52)

1. Oh that those lips had language! Life has pa.s.sed With me but roughly, since I heard them last.

2. A tremulous sigh from the gentle night wind Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping, While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, Keep guard; for the army is sleeping.

3. O Lord'! have mercy upon us, miserable offenders'!

4. So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan that moves To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

MODERATE MOVEMENT. (52)

1. The good', the brave', the beautiful', How dreamless' is their sleep, Where rolls the dirge-like music'

Of the over-tossing deep'!

Or where the surging night winds Pale Winter's robes have spread Above the narrow palaces, In the cities of the dead'!

2. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time.

3. Cast your eyes over this extensive country. Observe the salubrity of your climate, the variety and fertility of your soil; and see that soil intersected in every quarter by bold, navigable streams, flowing to the east and to the west, as if the finger of heaven were marking out the course of your settlements, inviting you to enterprise, and pointing the way to wealth.

QUICK MOVEMENT. (53)

1. Awake'! arise'! or be forever fallen.

2. Merrily swinging on brier and weed, Near to the nest of his little dame, Over the mountain side or mead, Robert of Lincoln is telling his name.

3. Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace-- Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right, Rebuckled the check strap, chained slacker the bit, Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

4. Oh my dear uncle, you don't know the effect of a fine spring morning upon a fellow just arrived from Russia. The day looked bright, trees budding, birds singing, the park so gay, that I took a leap out of your balcony, made your deer fly before me like the wind, and chased them all around the park to get an appet.i.te for breakfast, while you were snoring in bed, uncle.

Quality.--We notice a difference between the soft, insinuating tones of persuasion; the full, strong voice of command and decision; the harsh, irregular, and sometimes grating explosion of the sounds of pa.s.sion; the plaintive notes of sorrow and pity; and the equable and unimpa.s.sioned flow of words in argumentative style. This difference consists in a variation in the quality of the voice by which it is adapted to the character of the thought or sentiment read or spoken. In our attempts to imitate nature, however, it is important that all affectation be avoided, for perfect monotony is preferable to this fault. The tones of the voice should be made to correspond with the nature of the subject, without apparent effort.

EXAMPLES. (54)