§64. Exercises in Quality of Voice. (See § 39.) The Quality appropriate in the first five Exercises which follow is for the most part aspirate and guttural, with loud Force and middle Pitch; but the reader must not suppose that when a passage is characterized as adapted to any particular Quality, Pitch, or Force, the characterization applies to every word and syllable. Much must be left to individual taste and feeling. As in describing a complicate painting all that we can well do is to designate the predominant tint, so in these Exercises any attempt to do more than to note the prevailing tone would convey but a confused impression. The reader must learn first to understand and feel, and then nature will supply the right intonations. 1. CONSTANCE UPBRAIDS AUSTRIA. Shakespeare. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward, To teach thee safety! thou art perjured, too, Milton. 2. SATAN'S ENCOUNTER WITH DEATH. To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass, "Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he, Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons, Thy lingering, or, with one stroke of this dart, 3. OTHELLO VOWS REVENGE ON CASSIO.- Shakespeare. - 't is gone! O that the slave had forty thousand lives! O blood, Iago, blood! — Like to the Pontic sea Whose icy current and compulsive course 4. REPLY TO CORRY.- Henry Grattan. The right honorable gentleman has called me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not traitor unqualified by any epithet? I will tell him: it was because he... dare not. It was the act of a... coward who raises his arm to strike, but has not courage to give the blow. I will not call him. . . villain; because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy councilor. I will not call him... fool; because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I say he is one who has abused the privilege of Parliament and the freedom of debate, to the uttering language, which, if spoken out of the House, I should answer . . . only with a blow! I care not how high his situation, how low his character, how contemptible his speech; whether a privy councilor or a parasite, swer would be. ... .. a blow! ... 5. STILLNESS AND AWE. Young. 6. THE UNION. - Daniel Webster. my an Middle Pitch. Quality Orotund. - Force gentle and afterwards loud. Intonations profoundly emotional, but changing with the sentiment. - While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; — but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, - Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! 7. THE RAVEN. - Poe. Pitch middle, inclining to low. -Force moderate. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, ... And the silken, sad, uncertain . . . rustling of each purple curtain 8. BERTUCCIO'S ADDRESS. Byron. Bold Orotund Quality. Middle Pitch. Time moderate. - Movement stately and grand. alone: We will not strike for private wrongs We must forget all feelings save the one; We must resign all passions save our purpose; So that the sacrifice ascend to Heaven, And draw down freedom on her evermore. "But if we fail .? They never fail who die They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 9. HENRY V. TO HIS TROOPS. Orotund Quality. — Middle Pitch. Force. Shakespeare. Closing with High Pitch and Loud Once more unto the breach', dear friends, once more`; In peace there's nothing so becomes a man, As modest stillness and humility`: But when the blast of war' blows in our ears, Let it pry through the portage of the head', ; Now set the teeth', and stretch the nostril wide'; Have in these parts, from morn till even fought, Cry, God for Harry'! England', and St. George'! |