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15. Monotony

The most common fault in reading aloud and formal speaking is monotony. Thoughtlessness and monotony go together. The most effective remedy for the fault is clear thinking. Take, for example, the first line from Julius Cæsar, spoken by an officer, Flavius, to a group of citizens gathered in a street in Rome. The reader, whose mind and imagination are active, will be apt to speak the line somewhat as follows:

Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home.

But the thoughtless reader, indifferent to situation, citizens, officer, and what he says, will utter the words in a monotone, thus:

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Likely the "idle creatures" would not be moved by this sort of talk, though no doubt the active listener would be quite willing to betake himself hence without more urging. Such a habit of reading will not be improved much by working primarily on the manner of speaking the sentence. When the meaning of the words is understood and when they are spoken with the purpose of conveying their meaning to others, utterance will be like that of living speech.

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PROBLEMS IN PITCH VARIATION

1. Emphasis by change of pitch and inflection

God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he hears may be believed.

Shakespeare: Henry IV, 1, ii.

The right honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.

Sheridan.

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'Tis not what man Does which exalts him,
But what man Would do!

Browning: Saul.

Thurio. How likes she my discourse?
Proteus. Ill, when you speak of war.

Thurio. But well, when I discourse of love and peace?
Julia (aside). But better, indeed, when you hold your

peace.

Thurio. What says she to my birth?

Proteus. That you are well deriv'd.

Julia (aside). True; from a gentleman to a fool.

Shakespeare: Two Gentlemen of Verona, v, ii.

Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop a vibration as in twanging them to bring out the music.

Holmes Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

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A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

Proverbs xxv, 11.

Polonius. How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Hamlet. Well, God a-mercy.

Polonius. Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Polonius. Not I, my lord.

Hamlet. Then I would you were so honest a man.

Polonius. Honest, my lord!

Hamlet. Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to

be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Polonius. That 's very true, my lord.

Shakespeare: Hamlet, II, ii.

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Of all the heaven-descended virtues, that elevate and ennoble human nature, the highest, the sublimest, and the divinest is charity.

Stephens: The Future of the South.

My object at this time is to give encouragement and help to the “duffers,” the class of "hopeful duffers." Brilliant students have every help, but second-class students are sometimes neglected and disheartened. I have great sympathy with the "duffers," because I was only a second-rate student myself. The subject of my talk with you is books. Drummond: A Talk on Books.

I built my fortune on the dial of my watch; seconds became pennies, minutes became dimes, hours became dollars. I gave a money value to every tick and took advantage of everything that economized time. I never procrastinate; I never wait for other people to get ahead of me. I keep my eyes and ears open for opportunities; I look well into whatever seems good to me; when my judgment approves I act promptly and with decision. I don't know that there is any particular rule or law of success, but I'm pretty sure that one of the foundation principles is "Don't lose Time.” Not known.

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Cin.

A street. Enter CINNA the poet.

I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Cæsar,

And things unluckily charge my fantasy:

I have no will to wander forth of doors,

Yet something leads me forth.

Enter Citizens.

First Cit. What is your name?
Sec. Cit. Whither are you going?

Third Cit. Where do you dwell?

Fourth Cit. Are you a married man or a bachelor?

Sec. Cit. Answer every man directly.

First Cit. Ay, and briefly.

Fourth Cit. Ay, and wisely.

Third Cit. Ay, and truly, you were best.

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Cin. What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I a married man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly and briefly, wisely and truly: wisely I say, I am a bachelor.

Sec. Cit. That's as much as to say, they are fools that marry you 'll bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed; directly.

Cin. Directly, I am going to Cæsar's funeral.
First. Cit. As a friend or an enemy?

Cin. As a friend.

Sec. Cit. That matter is answered directly.
Fourth Cit. For your dwelling,

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briefly.

Cin. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.
Third Cit. Your name, sir, truly.

Cin. Truly, my name is Cinna.

First Cit. Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator.
Cin. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.

Fourth Cit. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

Cin. I am not Cinna the conspirator.

Sec. Cit. It is no matter, his name 's Cinna; pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.

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Third Cit. Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho! firebrands to Brutus', to Cassius'; burn all: some to Decius' house, and some to Casca's; some to Ligarius': away! go! [Exeunt.

Shakespeare: Julius Cæsar, III, iii.

2. Clauses of complete thought

My Lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on your present awful situation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the Constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war.

Chatham Speech on American Affairs.

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"The world," says Tertullian, "has more of cultivation every day, and is better furnished than in times of old. All places are opened now; all are familiarly known; all are scenes of business. Smiling farms have obliterated the notorious wilderness; tillage has tamed the forest land; flocks have put to flight the beasts of prey. Sandy tracts are sown ; rocks are put into shape; marshes are drained. There are more cities now, than there were cottages at one time. Islands are no longer wild; the crag is no longer frightful; everywhere there is a home, a population, a state, and a livelihood." Newman: Downfall and Refuge of Ancient Civilization.

The works of the great poets have never yet been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them. Most men have learned to read to serve a paltry convenience, as they have learned to cipher in order to keep accounts and not be cheated in trade but of reading as a noble intellectual exercise they know little or nothing; yet this only is reading, in a high sense, not that which lulls us as a luxury and suffers the noble faculties to sleep the while, but what we have to stand on tiptoe to read and devote our most alert and wakeful hours to.

Thoreau: Walden (Essay on Reading).

A mighty duty, sir, and a mighty inspiration impels every one of us to-night to lose in patriotic consecration whatever estranges, whatever divides. We, sir, are Americans - and we fight for human liberty! The uplifting force of the American idea is under every throne on earth. To redeem the earth from kingcraft and oppression this is our mission! And we shall not fail. God has sown in our soil the seed of his millennial harvest, and he will not lay the sickle to the ripening crop until his full and perfect day has come. Grady: The New South.

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in those. caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into

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