The Elements of Reading and Oratory

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D. Appleton, 1888 - Elocution - 356 pages
 

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Page 100 - Union ; on States dissevered, 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...
Page 209 - AT midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power : In dreams, through camp and court he bore The trophies of a conqueror...
Page 169 - The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,— the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods— rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,— Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man.
Page 161 - Give me another horse: bind up my wounds. Have mercy, Jesu! — Soft! I did but dream. 0 coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me! The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
Page 186 - With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun, When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower, Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild ; then silent night, With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, And these the gems of heaven, her starry train...
Page 189 - She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty; and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy that steals away Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony and shroud and pall And breathless darkness and the narrow house Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart...
Page 100 - 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 dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood...
Page 309 - ... accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.
Page 349 - Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No ! Men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain, — These constitute a State ; And sovereign law, that State's collected will, • O'er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing...
Page 268 - Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

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