8. LISTEN TO OTHERS. Give strict attention while others are reading, and try particularly to see wherein they do well. You will thus gradually make their merits your own.

9. STUDY THE READING LESSON. Prepare your reading exercise as carefully as you would for a recitation in history or geography. It is a mistake to suppose that the productions of the great masters of thought and expression can be read properly without such study.

THE

II.

ESSENTIAL POINTS IN PRACTICE.

I. Pleasant Quality of Tone.

HE tone of voice in ordinary reading should be sweet, musical, and sprightly. Practice the following examples for the cultivation of such a tone. Read as a person naturally speaks when in a happy, buoyant state of mind.

1. Give us, O give us, the man who sings at his work! He will do more in the same tíme,-he will do it better, he will persevere lònger. One is scarcely sènsible of fatigue whilst he marches to músic. The very stàrs are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sùnshine, graceful from very glàdness, beautiful because brìght.

2. What hò, my jovial mates! come on! we'll frolic it Like fairies frisking in the merry moònshine!

3. There is nothing like fùn, is there? I have n't any myself, but I do like it in others. O, we need it! We need all the counterweights we can mùster to balance the sad relations of life. God has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them?

4.

Hamelin Town's in Brùnswick,
By famous Hànover city:

The river Wèser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But when begins my ditty,

Almost five hundred years ago,

To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.

5. Insects generally must lead a jovial life. Think what it must be to lodge in a lily. Imagine a palace of ivory and pearl, with pillars of silver and capitals of gòld, and exhaling such a perfume as never arose from human cènser. Fancy again the fun of tucking one's self up for the night in the folds of a ròse, rocked to sleep by the gentle sighs of summer àir, nothing to do when you awake but to wash yourself in a déw-drop, and fall to eating your bèdclothes.

6. There's a good time coming, boys,
A good time coming:

We may not live to see the day,
But earth shall glisten in the ray
Of the good time coming.
Cannon balls may aid the truth,

But thought's a weapon stronger;
We'll win our battle by its aid;—
Wait a little longer.

II. Articulation.

Having made sure of a pleasant quality of voice, the pupil may next give his attention to cutting out his words with neatness and precision. Open the mouth sufficiently, and put life into the action of the jaw, tongue, and lips. Pupils who have a tendency to mumbling indistinctness-and it is a good exercise for all-should exaggerate the movement of the organs of articulation, working the muscles of the mouth with extreme but elastic motions. The words may be practiced one at a time;

then in phrases; then in complete sentences,-slowly at first, afterwards with increasing rapidity. When perfection is attained there will be no excessive movements,-nothing to interfere with a becoming expression of the features.

1. Lovely art thou, O Péace! and lovely are thy children, and lovely are the prints of thy footsteps in the green valleys,

2. Steel clanging sounded on steèl. Hèlmets are cleft on hìgh ; blood bursts and smokes around. As the troubled noise of the ocean when roll the waves on high; as the last peal of the thunder of heaven; such is the noise of battle.

3. Like leaves on trèes the life of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the gròund;
Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rìse:

So generations in their course decay;

So flourish thése, when those have pass'd away.

4. To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage he has to make is an excellent prepàrative. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vàcancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world.

5. What wàk'st thou, Spring?-Sweet voices in the woods, And reed-like èchoes, that have long been mùte;

Thou bringest back, to fill the solitudes,

The lark's clear pipe, the cùckoo's viewless flute,
Whose tone seems breathing mournfulness or glée,
Even as our hearts may be.

6. In looking forward to future life, let us recollect that we have not to sustain all its toil, to endure all its sufferings, or encounter all its crosses, at once. One moment comes laden with its own little burden, then flies, and is succeeded by another no heavier than the last: if óne could be sustained, so can another, and another.

III. Fullness and Power.

Fullness and power of voice are required for many purposes of expressive reading, and are also indispensable when speaking in a large space or addressing persons at a distance. The tone of ordinary conversation lacks the requisite strength and dignity.

The following examples are given for practice in a full free tone. Such exercises are very beneficial not only to the voice but to the health, as they bring into action most of the muscles of the trunk and give a wholesome stimulus to the vital

organs.

Observe the following directions in the order named:

1. Take a good standing position. 2. Inhale a deep breath quietly and promptly through the nostrils. 3. Control the breath by a slight effort of the muscles of the waist and abdomen, somewhat as in lifting. 4. Open the mouth and project the lips. 5. Fix the eye and the mind on some distant point, and aim the tone at that point. 6. Do not spend too much breath.

1. Hò! strike the flag-staff deèp, Sir Knight-hò! scatter flowers, fair maids:

Hò! gunners, fire a loud salùte-hò! gallants, draw your blades.

2. Awake, Sir King, the gates unspår!
Rise up, and ride both fast and fàr!
The sea flows over bolt and bàr!

3. Ye crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you the hands you first behèld,
To show they still are frèe. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes ànswer me,

4.

And bid your tenant welcome home again!

O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!
How hùge you are, how mighty, and how frèe!

Ye are the things that tower, that shìne; whose smile

Makes glád-whose frown is tèrrible; whose forms,
Robed or unrobed, do all the impress wear

Of awe divine.

5.

Again to the battle, Achaians!

Our hearts bid the tyrants defìance;

Our land-the first garden of Liberty's tree

It has been, and shall yèt be, the land of the frèe;
For the cross of our faith is replanted,

The pale, dying crescent is daunted,

And we màrch that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves
May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,

And the sword shall to glòry restore us.

6. It is this accursed American wàr that has led us, step by step, into all our present misfortunes and national disgràces. What was the cause of our wasting forty millions of money, and sixty thousand lives? The American wàr! What was it that produced the French rescript and a Frènch war? The American war! What was it that produced the Spanish manifesto and a Spanish war? The American wàr! What was it that armed forty-two thousand men in Ireland with the arguments carried on the points of forty thousand bayonets? The American wàr. For what are we about to incur an additional debt of twelve or fourteen millions? This accursed, cruel, diabolical American war!

III.

SLIDES OR INFLECTIONS.

N asking a direct question the voice glides from low to high,

other at a distance what he wants,-"The báll?" "No! the knife." The movement of the voice on the word "ball" is a rising slide or inflection; that upon "no" and "knife" is falling. The more intense the question and reply, the further up and down would the voice run.

In sad or plaintive utterance the slide becomes semitonic or minor. In irony or in double-meaning the voice waves upward and downward on the same sound, producing the circumflex slide, named rising or falling, according as the voice moves up or down at its close.