"Elocution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... born in Paris, where in 1787 he made his debut; from the first his great gifts were apparent, and during the Revolution he was the foremost actor at the Theatre de la Republique, and subsequently enjoyed the favour of Napoleon; his noble carriage and matchless elocution enabled him to play with great dignity such characters as Othello, Nero, Orestes, Leicester, etc.; introduced, like Kemble in England, a greater regard for historical accuracy ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... strength are advocating merely that we do as a nation regarding our general interests what we have already done in Panama. If, instead of acting as this nation did in the Fall of 1903, we had confined ourselves to debates in Congress and diplomatic notes; if, in other words, we had treated elocution as a substitute for action, we would have done nobody any good, and for ourselves we would have earned the hearty derision of all other nations—the canal would not even have been begun at the present day, and there would have ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... freedom and boldness, they are guided in all their movement by the spirit of the Sacred Word. They both stimulate thought and invigorate faith. Fresh and fragrant and breezy, one delights himself in them as in a garden in a June morning. From their exquisite diction one might almost infer the graceful elocution of their author. They are sermons to which the reader will ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... mouth. John Henry bein' a regular minister, he can get the Homiletic Review at a dollar and a half a year; we can subscribe for that, get the up-to-datest sermons by the most distinguished divines, get some gent that's afflicted with elocution to say 'em into a record, and on Sunday our friend and pastor here will reel 'em off fine. You press the button—he does the rest, as ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... cautious in studying elocution and gesticulation, lest they become our masters instead of our servants. These necessary but dangerous ingredients must be administered and taken in homeopathic doses, or the patient may die by being over-stimulated. But, even at the risk of being artificial, it is ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... Inclinable now grown to touch or taste, Sollicited her longing eye; yet first Pausing a while, thus to her self she mus'd. Great are thy Vertues, doubtless, best of Fruits, Though kept from Man, & worthy to be admir'd, Whose taste, too long forborn, at first assay Gave elocution to the mute, and taught The Tongue not made for Speech to speak thy praise: Thy praise hee also who forbids thy use, 750 Conceales not from us, naming thee the Tree Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil; Forbids us then to taste, but his forbidding ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... appears to be, that should we come to a fight they will completely alter the costume of the country, and "whop us into fits." Their style of elocution is masterly in the extreme, redolent with the sagest deductions, and overflowing with a magnificent and truly Eastern redundancy of the most poetical tropes. I will now proceed to give you an extract from the celebrated speaker on the war side—"the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... and other minor arts were taught, as well as painting and drawing. There was a Commercial School for Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Shorthand, Typewriting; French, German, etc., were taught; there were Musical Classes, Elocution Classes, a School of Engineering, a School of Photography. Enough; it will be seen that everything a lad might desire to learn he ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... meant to be giving Mr. Rushworth's opinion in better words than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly pleased ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... born at Cork in 1784, and died at Torquay in December, 1862, at the age of 78. His father was a teacher of elocution, who compiled a dictionary, and who was related to the Sheridans. He moved to London when his son was eight years old, and there became acquainted with William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. The son, after his school education, obtained a commission in the army, ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... promise to the test. At which words of mine there were many exchanges of gathered brows and significant nods, and Mr Jaddua Fyfe, to whom I was sitting next, slyly pinched me in the elbow; all which spoke plainer than elocution, that those present were accorded with me in opinion; and I gave inward thanks that such a braird of renewed courage and zeal was beginning ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... suffrage, some day during anniversary week, in some parlor in Boston. I corresponded with Adin Ballou, E. D. Draper, and others, on the subject, and talked the matter over with Prof. T. T. Leonard, teacher of elocution, who offered his hall for a place of meeting. I wrote a notice inviting all persons interested in woman suffrage to come to Mr. Leonard's hall, on a certain day and hour. At the time appointed the hall was full of people. I opened ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... disposed to communicate information than to seek it; and I became a patient listener. If the boldness and strangeness of his opinions occasionally startled me, I could not but admire the clearness with which he stated his propositions, the fervour of his elocution, and the plausibility ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... be "Professor of Elocution," as Mr. Roberts gaily called her when the workers were alone together. It had been discovered that she could read both prose and poetry with effect. So a reading-class was organized, and they chose for the first evening, not one of Bryant's or Whittier's ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... spontaneously before scholars and princes, who assembled to listen to the marvelous adventures of knights and ladies, giants and magicians, from the lips of the story-teller. Ariosto excelled in the practice of reading aloud with distinct utterance and animated elocution, an accomplishment of peculiar value at a time when books were scarce, and the emoluments of authors depended more on the gratuities of their patrons than the sale of their works. In each of the four editions which he published, he improved, corrected, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... M. Rollin took place in 1842. His first speech was delivered on the subject of the secret-service money. The elocution was easy and flowing, the manner oratorical, the style somewhat turgid and bombastic. But in the course of the session M. Rollin improved, and his discourse on the modification of the criminal law, on other legal ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis of ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... restraint, and an utterance, whatever may be the power of voice, at least expressive of a strong individuality; and you find instead a Christ Church man of ten years' standing, who has not yet taken orders; his dress and manner derived from his college tutor, and his elocution ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... through her lashes—a look that always made him think of the pool above the parsonage, where lucent brown water shone through rushes. He saw the look, for he always glanced round as he read, having gathered from his book on elocution that this was correct. He smiled across at her, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... Athenians, is one of the most memorable circumstances in the general history of self-education. Repeated humiliation and repulse only spurred him on to fresh solitary efforts for improvement. He corrected his defective elocution by speaking with pebbles in his mouth; he prepared himself to overcome the noise of the assembly by declaiming in stormy weather on the sea-shore of Phalerum; he opened his lungs by running, and extended his ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... manager of the Edinburgh Theatre. At Edinburgh he married an actress named Heydon, from whom, however, he was soon obliged to part on account of her dissolute life. Returning again to London, he set up as wandering lecturer on elocution, and in this character travelled with varying success through England. In November 1776 he set out on a visit to France, and lived at Paris for upwards of six months on funds supplied by his father. His resources ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... convince anyone that our claim that The American Star Speaker & Model Elocutionist is beyond all question the best from an Elocutionary point of view. Of the 500 or more selections there is not one that is not available for reading on any desired occasion. The treatise on Acting, Delsarte, Elocution, Oratory and Physical Culture is by the professor of these departments in the Missouri State University, while its mechanical make-up is that of a work of art, for the text and half-tone illustrations are the best made. No home, school, church, club, literary ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general history and ethnography. His powers of elocution were of a high order, and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's or Pope's instinct for making rhymes—it was his nature, and could ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, a year before graduation. In 1870 he graduated from the Law School of Howard University. The same year he married the daughter of Rev. John Shippen, of Washington, D. C., Miss Fannie Ellen, a lady whom he had the pleasure of instructing in the first elocution ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... contrived to persuade me and to make me believe that I was born to become the most renowned preacher of our age as soon as I should have grown fat—a quality which I certainly could not boast of, for at that time I was extremely thin. I had not the shadow of a fear as to my voice or to my elocution, and for the matter of composing my sermon I felt myself equal to the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... by the child according to her lights. She engaged the best "Gawayyas" to teach her music, the best "Kath-thaks" to teach her dancing, the best "Ustads" to teach her elocution and deportment, and the best of Munshis to ground her in Urdu and Persian belles lettres; so that when Imtiazan reached her fifteenth year her accomplishments were noised abroad in the bazaar. Beautiful too she was, with the fair ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... curtain which is fastened discloses mourning, this does not mean sparrows or elocution or even a whole preparation, it means that there are ears and very often much ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... many kindred spirits, young men of the same standing as himself, chiefly occupied in the banks, offices, and warehouses of the city of London. There they had classes established for the study of history, for the discussion of philosophical and literary subjects, and for the practice of elocution. The recitations of the several members awoke the embers that smouldered in his heart from the time he had left the stage. His early experience had made him acquainted with the manner in which the voice ought to be modulated to make the utterance effective; ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... skill of a finished artist combined with the freshness and simplicity of youth. Great praise, but there are few actors who can claim any competition with him." Six weeks later he was playing Hamlet there, and his elocution is spoken of as remarkable for its purity, his action as suited to the passion he represented, and his performance as an exquisite one that delighted ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sub-title: "An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking; calculated to improve the Minds and refine the Taste of Youth, and also to instruct them in the Geography, History, and Politics of the United States. To which are prefixed Rules in Elocution, and Directions for expressing the Principal Passions of the Mind." This laboriously emphatic title-page bears the motto from Mirabeau: "Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be Washington." In strict accordance with this patriotic sentiment, ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... engraven in brass, and the tablet held up by him on the one side, and Greece on the other, to shew the union of their opinion. And Nestor ought to be exhibited in silver, uniting all his audience in one mind by his soft and gentle elocution. Brass is the common emblem of strength, and silver of gentleness. We call a soft voice a silver voice, and a persuasive tongue a silver tongue.—I once read for hand, the band of Greece, but I think the text right.—To hatch ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... elegant pursuits of literature; * he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he discharged and enforced the duties ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... to all that was exquisite and rare in her to a state of mere irritable consciousness of her defects. It was evident to him that in a scene of great capabilities she never once rose beyond the tricks of an elementary elocution, that her violence had a touch of commonness in it which was almost vulgarity, and that even her attitudes had lost half their charm. For, in the effort—the conscious and laboured effort of acting—her movements, which had exercised such an enchantment ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... make people happy. Words of good cheer were native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to lighten the lot of all who came into his beautiful presence. His talk was simple, natural, and direct, never dropping into circumlocution nor elocution. Now that he is gone, whoever has known him intimately for any considerable period of time will linger over his tender regard for, and his engaging manner with, children; his cheery "Good Day" to poor people ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... declaimed the whole passage in a sing-song tone, accompanied by a few crude gestures recalled from long-ago school-boy elocution. Josephine knew what was coming. Every time David proposed to her he had begun by reciting poetry. She twirled her towel around the last plate resignedly. If it had to come, the sooner it was over the better. Josephine knew by experience that there was no heading David ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... unprofitably for anything in life—bartered the most corroborative of the testificatory documents, which would now make the establishment of my case a comparatively light task. Have I never spoken to you of my boyhood? My maternal uncle was a singing-master and master of elocution. I am indebted to him for the cultivation of my voice. He taught me an effective delivery of my sentences. The English of a book of his called The Speaker is still to my mind a model of elegance. Remittances of money came to him from an unknown quarter; and, with a break or two, have come ever ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... restored the colleges founded by the Tangs, he built a school or academy in every town, he directed the public examinations to be held impartially and frequently, and he gave special prizes as a reward for elocution. Some of the greatest historians China has produced lived in his reign, and wrote their works under his patronage; of these Szemakwang was the most famous. His history of the Tangs is a masterpiece, and his ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... carefully educated for public life, the ambition for it dinned into his ear from childhood. In his school vacations his father made him learn and declaim chosen specimens of masculine oratory; engaged an eminent actor to give him lessons in elocution; bade him frequent theatres, and study there the effect which words derive from looks and gesture; encouraged him to take part himself in private theatricals. To all this the boy lent his mind with delight. He had the orator's inborn ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her daughter's beauty should from time to time reach the ears of Louis XV. She had her picture painted by French artists. She made a proficiency in the French language the principal object of her education; bringing over some French actors to Vienna to instruct her in the graces of elocution, and subsequently establishing as her chief tutor a French ecclesiastic, the Abbe de Vermond, a man of extensive learning, of excellent judgment, and of most conscientious integrity. The appointment would have been in every respect a most fortunate ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Interpretation; Greek Interpretation; Sacred Rhetoric and Elocution; Vocal Music; ...
— The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 13 • Jesse E. Moorland
... the task of the philosopher and the literary expert. We observe only the superficialities. There are never more than THREE speaking actors before the audience at once. They wear huge masques, shaped to fit their parts. The wide mouthpieces make the trained elocution carry to the most remote parts of the theater. The actors wear long trailing robes and are mounted on high shoes to give them sufficient stature before the distant audience. When a new part is needed in the play, an actor retires to the booth, and soon comes forth with a changed ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... doctrines carry out their principles into practice, in any such way as to offend the taste, or infringe on the rights of others, it is proper to express disgust and disapprobation. If the female advocate chooses to come upon a stage, and expose her person, dress, and elocution to public criticism, it is right to express disgust at whatever is offensive and indecorous, as it is to criticize the book of an author, or the dancing of an actress, or any thing else that is presented to public observation. ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... long, we can never Straighten out life's tangled skein, Why should we, in vain endeavor, Guess and guess and guess again? Life's a pudding full of plums; Care's a canker that benumbs. Wherefore waste our elocution On impossible solution? Life's a pleasant institution, Let us take ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... distant year 1875, when the telegraph and the Atlantic cable were the most wonderful things in the world, a tall young professor of elocution was desperately busy in a noisy machine-shop that stood in one of the narrow streets of Boston, not far from Scollay Square. It was a very hot afternoon in June, but the young professor had forgotten the heat and the grime of the workshop. He was wholly ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... to be celebrated in a beautiful grove of elms and chestnuts, almost in sight of Le Bocage, Edna went over very early to aid in arranging the tables, decking the platforms with flowers, and training one juvenile Demosthenes, whose elocution was as unpromising as that ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... belief that, at this period, one of the great public prizes of glory, which young students set before themselves, was to deliver a Fourth of July oration. Meanwhile no instruction was given in elocution, rhetoric or composition. The required exercises in declamation and writing were conducted with almost no criticism. They neither added nor subtracted from our standing with the teachers by any sign known to us. We were left to our own self-instruction, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... he was about to re-enter his asylum, he was followed by his daughter-in-law named Adrisyanti. As she neared him, he heard the sound from behind of a very intelligent recitation of the Vedas with the six graces of elocution. Hearing that sound, the Rishi asked, 'Who is it that followeth me?' His daughter-in-law then answered, 'I am Adrisyanti, the wife of Saktri. I am helpless, though devoted to asceticism.' Hearing her, Vasishtha said, 'O daughter, whose is this voice that I heard, repeating the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Bookham, NOV. 29, 1796. My little man waits for your lessons to get on in elocution: he has made no further advance but that of calling out, as he saw our two watches hung on two opposite hooks over the chamber chimney-piece, "Watch, papa,—watch, mamma;" so, though his first speech is English, the idiom is French. We agree this is to avoid any heartburning ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... surprise when I beheld the selfsame figure that had appeared a half-hour before upon the bank. My fancy had conjured up a very different image. A form and attitude and garb were instantly created worthy to accompany such elocution; but this person was, in all visible respects, the reverse of this phantom. Strange as it may seem, I could not speedily reconcile myself to this disappointment. Instead of returning to my employment, I threw myself in a chair that was placed opposite the door, and ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... finished pronunciation speech and song of emotional power are impossible. Gounod, the composer, says, "Pronunciation creates eloquence." Mr. Forbes-Robertson, the English master of dramatic diction, speaking for his own profession says: "The trouble with contemporary stage elocution springs from the actor's very desire to act well. In his effort to be natural he mumbles his words as too many people do in everyday life. Much of this can be corrected by constantly bearing in mind the true value of vowels, the percussive value of consonants, and the importance ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... and was sent up to the lords, by whom it was read a second time and committed; but the ministry employing their whole strength against it, on the report it was thrown out by a majority of two voices. The earl of Mulgrave again distinguished himself by his elocution, in a speech that was held in great veneration by the people; and, among those who entered a protest in the journals of the house when the majority rejected the bill, was prince George of Denmark, duke of Cumberland. The court had not collected ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... audacious to the last "There is, sir," he said in that veiled voice of his which sounded as if it were struggling through dense fog and could indeed only have been made audible throughout the chamber by a trained master in elocution—"there is in war a manoeuvre which is well known. First the cavalry advance creating dust and waving sabres, then a rattle of musketry is heard along the line, and next the big guns are brought into play, and when the ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... Phil heard such elocution. The intonation, the fervour and fire, the gesticulation were the perfect interpretation of a poet, a mystic, a veritable Thespian. On and on Jim went in uninterrupted, almost breathless silence. Phil was anxious for his friend's well-being, ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... that is to say, spoiled; beautiful women are so, for the most part—invariably so, if on the stage. That kind of temperament is part of an actress' equipment, an asset, as much an item of her stock in trade as any trick of elocution or pantomime. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... and adroitness, maintains a prominent part in the conversation with the most perfect plausibility; and although, from his want of accurate information, he will rarely instruct, he seldom fails to amuse by the exuberance of his fancy, and the rapidity of his elocution. But take any one of his sentences to pieces, analyze it, strip it of its gaudy clothing and fanciful decorations, and you will be astonished what skeletons of bare, shallow, and spiritless ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... beheld this seamstress from King Street, Westminster, but she must have been familiar with the handsome figure of one who had drunk many a brimming glass at the Mitre Tavern. Thus, when he made bold to praise her elocution, she was not offended, and, although she ignored his request to continue the "Scornful Lady," Anne proved sufficiently mistress of the interruption to astonish the intruder by her "discourse and sprightly wit." That innate breeding, of which no amount of poverty ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... his intentions, and quite as bottomless are even his finished sentences. We have known "old stagers," in the newspaporial line, veteran reporters, so dumbfounded and confounded by the first fire of Ralph, and his grand and lofty acrobating in elocution, that they up, seized their hat and paper, and sloped, horrified at the prospect of an attempt ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... who had been laid up with the gout, came down with the mien and apparatus of an invalid, on purpose to make a full declaration of his sentiments on our present circumstances. What he said was enforced with much grace both of action and elocution. He commended the ministry for pursuing moderate and healing measures, and such -,is tended to set the King at the head of all his people." See Mr.- P. Yorke's ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... be mistaken, for another, especially by the uneducated and by careless speakers. The hearer cannot detect the difference, and in fact there is none, practically. The extremely accurate and discriminating elocution of which we hear was in all probability confined ...
— Latin Pronunciation - A Short Exposition of the Roman Method • Harry Thurston Peck
... to say that I saw Dr. Macdonald once and heard him speak. His venerable aspect and chaste elocution made a powerful impression on all who heard him. His discourse could not be reported in cold print, for the flash of the mystic's eye, the human kindness that emanated from his whole being, and the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... brand (cxi. 4-5). If such self-pity is to be literally interpreted, it only reflected an evanescent mood. His interest in all that touched the efficiency of his profession was permanently active. He was a keen critic of actors' elocution, and in 'Hamlet' shrewdly denounced their common failings, but clearly and hopefully pointed out the road to improvement. His highest ambitions lay, it is true, elsewhere than in acting, and at an early period of his theatrical career he undertook, with triumphant ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... two kinds of language is the charm of all good reading and speaking. The teacher of elocution is ever trying to recall the pupil to the tones, the facial expression, and the action, so natural to him in ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... music and the dance. To sacrifice these is to sacrifice that which is most vital and leave only the simulacrum of a chorus. Some small effects in the line of the picturesque can be achieved by means of costuming, marching and grouping, but the rest can be nothing but elocution,—a frosty appeal to the ethical sense, offered as a surrogate for the witchery of song and rhythmic motion. One may be pardoned for thinking that a good ballet would have served the ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... to produce a practicable speaking telephone was Alexander Graham Bell. He was born at Edinburgh on March 1, 1847, and comes of a family associated with the teaching of elocution. His grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, Mr. Andrew Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were all professed elocutionists. The latter has published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are well known, especially his treatise on ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... whose faculties are adapted to some single spot, and who, when they are removed to any other place, sink at once into silence and stupidity. I have discovered by a long series of observations that invention and elocution suffer great impediments from dense and impure vapors, and that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper distance from the surface of the earth accelerates the fancy and sets at liberty those intellectual powers which were before shackled by too strong ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... precautions, began to draw up the president, whose Tarasconese cap appeared at last at the edge of the crevasse. Inebnit followed him in turn and the two mountaineers met again with that effusion of brief words which, in persons of limited elocution, follows great dangers. Both were trembling with their effort, and Tartarin passed them his flask of kirsch to steady their legs. He himself was nimble and calm, and while he shook himself free of snow he hummed his song ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... soap ashes. I remember the gentleman very well. He dyed about 1650, I believe near 90 yeares old, and was the handsomest, well limbed, strait old man that ever I saw, had a good witt and a graceful elocution. He was the father of Bess Broughton, one of the greatest beauties of ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... which is everywhere vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest splendour: it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this "vivida vis animi," in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... answers into pieces of original information; lecturing on the various objects of interest we passed; yet all the time interesting, and excellent company. At times he began to talk of poetry, and would pour forth the stores of his wonderful memory, reciting passages with excellent elocution, and delighting his hearers. I recall the fine style in which he rolled forth "Hohenlinden," and "The Royal George," and the "Battle of the Baltic." At the close he would sink his voice to a low muttering, just murmuring impressively, "be-neath the wave!" Then would pause, ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... things are not the things that make a college.... And, Oh! the experiments! It is enough to try the patience of a Job. I came here to take a college course, and not to dabble in a little of every insignificant thing that comes up. More than half of my time is taken up in writing essays, practicing elocution, trotting to chapel, and reading poetry with the teacher of English literature, and it seems to make no difference to Miss Howard and Mr. Durant whether the Latin, Greek and Mathematics are well learned or not. ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... oppress'd, When Vengeance listens to the fool's request; Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart, Each gift of Nature, and each grace of Art, With fatal heat impetuous courage glows, With fatal sweetness elocution flows, Impeachment stops the speaker's powerful breath, And restless fire precipitates on ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... Anglicanus" is a most valuable history of the stage of the Restoration, describes an actor named Johnson as being especially "skilful in the art of painting, which is a great adjument very promovent to the art of elocution." Mr. Waldron, who, in 1789, produced a new edition of the "Roscius Anglicanus," with notes by Tom Davies, the biographer of Garrick, decides that Downes's mention of the "art of painting" has reference to the art of "painting the face and ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... office he was perfectly well acquainted with the persons of the king and the dauphin, with the characters of the ministers and grandees, and, in a word, with all the secrets of state, on which he held forth with equal solemnity and elocution. He exclaimed against the jesuits, and the farmers of the revenue, who, he said, had ruined France. Then, addressing himself to me, asked, if the English did not every day drink to the health of madame la marquise? I did not at first comprehend his meaning; but ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... (1794) took its title from the fact that Burke called the people the "swinish multitude." The book resulted in sending the author to the Tower for sedition. In 1798 he gave up politics and started a school of elocution which became very famous. Thomas Hardy (1752-1832), who kept a bootmaker's shop in Piccadilly, was a fellow prisoner with Thelwall, being arrested for high treason. He was founder (1792) of The London Corresponding Society, a kind of clearing house ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... for was I to defer to an untutored African on a point of pronunciation? Classic shades of Harvard, forbid! Affecting scornful indifference, I tried to edge away, proposing to myself to enter the camp at some other point, where my elocution would be better appreciated. Not a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... tremendous effect in all the parts of his service. The psalm he sang mostly alone, which appeared to trouble him not at all. The scripture lesson he read with a rhythmic, solemn cadence that may have broken every rule of elocution, but was nevertheless most impressive. His prayer, during which McFarquhar stood, while all the rest sat, was a most extraordinary production. In a most leisurely fashion it pursued its course through a whole system of theology, with careful explanation at critical places, lest ...
— Michael McGrath, Postmaster • Ralph Connor
... corrupt means,—by direct bribery, I fear, in many cases. Lord Althorp has the temper of Lord North with the principles of Romilly. If he had the oratorical powers of either of those men, he might do anything. But his understanding, though just, is slow, and his elocution painfully defective. It is, however, only justice to him to say that he has done more service to the Reform Bill even as a debater than all the other ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... (Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) To rap a few short sentences; Or if, for want of proper keys, His Greek might make confusion, Then just to get a rap from Burke, To recommend a little work On Public Elocution. 610 Meanwhile, the spirits made replies To all the reverent whats and whys, Resolving doubts of every size, And giving seekers grave and wise, Who came to know their destinies, A rap-turous reception; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of morals which we may have from Aristotle and Epictetus with more profit than from any poet. Neither Holyday nor Stapleton have imitated Juvenal in the poetical part of him, his diction, and his elocution. Nor, had they been poets (as neither of them were), yet in the way they took, it was impossible for them to have ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... first, last, and most important quality of all, in training for a "finish'd speaker," generally unsought, unreck'd of, both by teacher and pupil? Though may-be it cannot be taught, anyhow. At any rate, we need to clearly understand the distinction between oratory and elocution. Under the latter art, including some of high order, there is indeed no scarcity in the United States, preachers, lawyers, actors, lecturers, &c. With all, there seem to be few ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... finds a welcome here because it is a favourite with teachers of elocution and their audiences. It teaches us to hold life cheap when the nation's safety is ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... fitly applying those words is of a slower progress. The generality of readers, for having found a like robe, very mistakingly imagine they have the same body and inside too, whereas force and sinews are never to be borrowed; the gloss, and outward ornament, that is, words and elocution, may. Most of those I converse with, speak the same language I here write; but whether they think the same thoughts I cannot say. The Athenians, says Plato, study fulness and elegancy of speaking; the Lacedaemonians ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... effusion. oration, recitation, delivery, say, speech, lecture, harangue, sermon, tirade, formal speech, peroration; speechifying; soliloquy &c. 589; allocution &c. 586; conversation &c. 588; salutatory : screed: valedictory [U.S.][U.S.]. oratory; elocution, eloquence; rhetoric, declamation; grandiloquence, multiloquence[obs3]; burst of eloquence; facundity[obs3]; flow of words, command of words, command of language; copia verborum[Lat]; power of speech, gift of the gab; usus loquendi[Lat]. speaker ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... cannot succeed in ascertaining what these said circumstances are!... He has begun (I think) to discourse concerning my latest offer of marriage in open Court. What a pity that hon'ble judges should not study to acquire at least ordinary proficiency in such a simple affair as Elocution! ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... which seems to be the only alternative to white muslin for ladies who aspire to be considered historic. Not Marie Stuart herself could have become it better than Lola Montez. Her face, air, attitude, and elocution are thoroughly and bewilderingly feminine. Perhaps her smartest and happiest remark was the one in which, with a pretty affectation, she says, "If I were a gentleman, I should like an American young lady to flirt with, but a typical English girl for a wife." ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... this to his profound ideas, to his superior reason, which almost procured him the place of Sieyes in this second revolutionary generation. Petion, of a calm and determined character, was the active man of this party. His tranquil brow, his fluent elocution, his acquaintance with the people, soon procured for him the municipal magistracy, which Bailly had discharged for the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... well and wonderfully beautiful; at present she is having lessons in dancing and elocution, and turning the heads of her teachers. It is amusing—or would be amusing, to any one else than me—to see how the quiet family she is with clucks after her in perpetual anxiety, and how cavalierly she treats them. I think she is fairly happy; she never mentions Meryon's name; but ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... head of Vocal Gymnastics, treats of Respiration, Phonetics, and Elocution; concise and clear principles and rules are given, accompanied by examples and exercises sufficiently numerous to enable the student to bring them completely within his comprehension and under ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... ladies who had mislaid their fans blushed as they listened to the old gentleman, whose brilliant elocution won their indulgence for certain details which we have suppressed, as too erotic for the present age; nevertheless, we may believe that each lady complimented him in private; for some time afterwards he gave ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... charity," said the former, "if some philanthropist would give this blighter elocution lessons. Can you ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... student of modern days the greatest hardship would appear in the first recitation of the day before breakfast following chapel exercises. Three classes were held daily except on Saturday, when there was only one recitation and an exercise in elocution. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... in my hand, in the back drawing-room of my lodging in Conduit-street. It was about ten o'clock in the afternoon. My dinner was just removed. It had left me with that gay complacency of disposition, and irrepressible propensity of elocution, which result from a satisfied appetite, and an undisturbed digestion. My sense of contentment became more vigorous and confirmed, as I cast my eye around my apartment, and contemplated my well-filled book-case, and the many articles of convenience with which I had contrived to accommodate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... Barron used to shine in the chief parts; and later in life, after the Norwich home was broken up, his little granddaughter would sit behind him in a great armchair, and be introduced, with his stately elocution, to the world of dramatic literature. From this, in a direct line, we can deduce the charades at Claygate; and after money came, in the Edinburgh days, that private theatre which took up so much of Fleeming's energy and thought. The company - Mr. and Mrs. ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who can do that but ill, will do this much worse, and so far from elevating poesy will but abase divinity. The same fertility of invention—the same wisdom of disposition—the same judgment in observance of decencies—the same lustre and vigour of elocution—the same modesty and majesty of number— briefly, the same kind of habit—is required in both, only this latter allows better stuff, and therefore would look ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... and for that reason you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that attract people to the hearing of the Word. You have got a fine voice, and it will improve with judicious use. Your father is now on the outlook for a teacher of elocution to instruct you how to make the best of it, and speak with ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... said Miss Allison, as she sealed the letter, nodding confidently to Mrs. Sherman, who had come over to help with Lloyd's costume. "You remember Nell Bond, do you not? She took the prize every year in elocution, and was always in demand at every entertainment. She is the most charming reader I ever heard, and as for story-telling—well, she's better than the 'Arabian Nights.' You must let the Little Colonel come over every evening ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... mercy; and this imperfection of sympathy (the question of Waterloo apart) rested, it was impossible not to feel, on his so resenting the dishonour suffered at our hands by his beautiful tongue, to which, as the great field of elocution, he was patriotically devoted. I think he fairly loathed our closed English vowels and confused consonants, our destitution of sounds that he recognised as sounds; though why in this connection he put up best with our own compatriots, embroiled at that time often in even stranger vocables than now, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... lecturer to whom I listened was Mr. Everett. Mr. Everett's reputation as an orator is very great, and I was especially anxious to hear him. I had long since known that his power of delivery was very marvelous; that his tones, elocution, and action were all great; and that he was able to command the minds and sympathies of his audience in a remarkable manner. His subject also was the war—or rather the causes of the war and its qualification. Had the North given to the South cause ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... Chapel, London, was a student at Hoxton Academy, there was a good lecturer on elocution there of the name of True. In the Memoir, published in 1863, are some pleasing reminiscences by Dr Leifchild of this excellent teacher, who seems to have taken great pains with the students, and to have awakened in their ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... I tried to be friends with a little girl I had known in Chelsea, but she met my advances coldly. She lived on Appleton Street, which was too aristocratic to mix with Wheeler Street. Geraldine was studying elocution, and she wore a scarlet cape and hood, and she was going on the stage by and by. I acknowledged that her sense of superiority was well-founded, and retired farther into my corner, for the first time conscious ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... were altogether masculine. She had the sharp voice, the freedom of speech, the unruly tongue of the old woman of the eighteenth century, heightened by an accent suggestive of the common people, a mannish, highly colored style of elocution peculiar to herself, rising above modesty in the choice of words and fearless in calling things baldly ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... French, pigeon-shooting, elocution, kites, composition, nutting, and the academy debating society; and the list of the future demands upon their time grew as they talked, until ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... not long—for independently of the impatience he could not but entertain at that moment of all subjects but that nearest his heart, he was by no means ambitious of making a display of his powers of elocution. Yet, notwithstanding this, he treated his theme in so masterly a manner, and in such perfectly good taste, omitting all expressions of that rancor towards Great Britain, which forms so leading a feature in American orations on this occasion, and yet reflecting honor ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Her elocution was exquisite and provided the bizarre narrative with a refinement which contrasted with its crudities, like Valenciennes lace on ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... sensitive tact. His qualities and his limitations alike appear in the Spectator. For example, he tells us that he wishes that country clergymen would borrow the sermons of great divines, and devote all their own efforts to acquiring a good elocution: [Footnote: Spectator 106.] here we detect the practical moralist and the man who likes a thing good of its kind, but not the enthusiast. He upholds the observance of Sunday on account of its social influences rather ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... gratified by the attention which was paid to every word that he uttered by the nut-brown Mysie, that, notwithstanding his high birth and distinguished quality, he bestowed on her some of the more ordinary and second-rate tropes of his elocution. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... little able to do. And so that, indeed, appears to us to be the proper materials of rhetoric, which we have said appeared to be such to Aristotle. VII. And these are the divisions of it, as numerous writers have laid them down: Invention; Arrangement; Elocution; Memory; Delivery. Invention, is the conceiving of topics either true or probable, which may make one's cause appear probable; Arrangement, is the distribution of the topics which have been thus conceived with regular order; Elocution, is the adaptation ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... small actor. Bracegirdle did the same; and, striking the attitudes that had passed for heroic in their day, they declaimed out of the "Rival Queens" two or three tirades, which I graciously spare the reader of this tale. Their elocution was neat and silvery; but not one bit like the way people speak in streets, palaces, fields, roads and rooms. They had not made the grand discovery, which Mr. A. Wigan on the stage, and every man of sense off it, has made in our day and nation; namely, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... him it is always, 'Yes, sir, no, sir.' I'm going to tell him a few things when he comes home to-night of what I go through with all day in his absence. Elocution lessons! Just you ask ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... Dresden had become alarmed at the action of the men of Leipsic; and so, on March 11th, when the men of Leipsic supposed that all was granted, General von Carlowitz entered their city at the head of a strong force, and demanded that the Town Council should abstain from exciting speeches; that the Elocution Union should give up all political discussion; that the processions of people should cease; and above all, that the march from Leipsic to Dresden, which was believed to be then intended, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... de Calonne (1734-1802); statesman, financier, and pamphleteer. On the 3rd of November, 1783, he was made Controller-General, but lost the post in 1787. "A man of incredible facility, facile action, facile elocution, facile thought. . . . in her Majesty's soirees, with the weight of a world lying on him, he is the delight of men and women." (Carlyle, "French Revolution," book ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... men—original orations on woman suffrage—resulted in a $20 prize to Edwin Hahn of Pomona College, five young men participating. Clare, daughter of Judge C. C. McComas, gave highly-appreciated recitations on the woman question, and Miss Nina Cuthbert, the young teacher of elocution, delighted many audiences with her readings and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... throw them away: no man ever wrote well until he had forgotten every rule of rhetoric, and no orator ever spake straight to the hearts of men until he had tumbled his elocution into the Irish Sea. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... hearer whom he is sent to bless, he shall be able to tell out the thing that is in him. Congregations are not generally unreasonable in their requirements; indeed, as a rule they are predisposed to indulgence, which has been well for some of us. They do not clamour for an exhibition of elocution twice every Sunday. They do not come to church demanding to hear in every preacher the wonder of his age. But they do ask that a man be audible; that his voice, if not melodious as a silver bell, be human; that his pronunciation, if not faultless, be distinct, ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... could have heard Elihu Burritt's speech. One unbroken, unabated stream it was of profound and lofty and original eloquence. I felt riveted to my seat till he finished it. There was no oratory about it, in the ordinary sense of that word; no graces of elocution. It was mighty thoughts radiating off from his heated mind like the sparkles from the glowing steel on his own anvil, getting on as they come out what clothing of language they might, and thus having on the most ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... graduated with distinction from Charleston College in 1850, receiving a prize for superiority in English composition and elocution. He then studied law; but, like many other authors both North and South, the love of letters proved too strong for the practice of his profession. His literary bent, as with most of our gifted authors, manifested itself early, and even in his college days he became a devotee of the poetic ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... speak from it; a magistrate may deliver some pronouncement; a political exhortation may be uttered; in the case of a public funeral, or even of the private obsequies in some eminent family, an oration over the deceased may be spoken with that finished and animated elocution which the Romans so zealously cultivated, and which the Italians still affect with no little success. It is not indeed the same platform as was used by Cicero and the orators of the republic: this stood elsewhere, and doubtless ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... of singing should, in a certain sense, be an elocutionist as well. Not an elocutionist from the standpoint of many who are called elocutionists, who are stagey, full of mannerisms, and who exaggerate everything pertaining to elocution. Of course the better class of elocutionists are not guilty of these things; but they do idealize everything, whether they read, recite, or declaim, and this in their profession is a mark of true ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... as quiet as if they were so many teachers of elocution. Now is the time for your speech; see, they are all ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... in Florence for many years, with whom I was for several of them very intimate, played the ungrateful part of Falkland. He was a heavy actor with fairly good elocution and delivery, and not unfitted for a part which it might have been difficult to fill without him. He was to a great degree a reading man, and had a considerable knowledge of ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... tender passages in the same prosaic tone with which he described the shipwreck, and his elocution would have been funny to any other group of persons; as it was, ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... towards the city in the immediate vicinity, of which Vaura alighted at a neat cottage to visit a blind protegee, one Marie Perrault, daughter of a one-time actor of no mean repute, who had taught elocution at the Seminaire where Miss Vernon had finished her education. Monsieur Perrault had assisted Vaura in the getting up of theatricals, she having developed such excellent histrionic powers. Perrault secretly hoped she would yet make her debut from the boards of ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... and with the study of expression in English, is most desirable. This, however, does not mean that training in speech, as a distinct object in itself, should be allowed to fall into comparative neglect. It is quite possible that, along with the healthy disapproval of false elocution and meaningless declamation, may come an underestimation of the important place of a right kind and a due degree of technical training in ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... were a soldier. We tolerate from a man who has almost necessarily been deprived of a careful education much clumsiness and awkwardness of elocution. Soult did not speak much better than the Duke of Wellington, but he was listened to. He had, like the Duke, an air of command ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... English, or Italian writers. His apprehension was quick, his imagination fine, and his memory remarkably strong; though his greatest commendations were a very genteel address, a ready wit and an excellent elocution, which shewed him to advantage wherever he went. There was, notwithstanding, one principal defect in his disposition, and this was an infinite vanity, which gave him so insufferable a presumption, as led him to think that nothing was too much for his capacity, nor any ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... help feeling that Crusoe was complimented by his attention. He picked out his place, as his hearer had advised him, and plunged into the details of the cannibal feast with pride and determination. Though his elocution may have been of a style peculiar to beginners and his pronunciation occasionally startling in its originality, still Sammy gathered the gist of the story. He puffed at his pipe so furiously that the foreign gentleman's turbaned head was emptied with amazing rapidity, and ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... acting, a most important point is the study of elocution; and in elocution one great difficulty is the use of sufficient force to be generally heard without being unnaturally loud, and without acquiring a stilted delivery. The advice of the old actors was that you should always pitch your voice so as to be heard by the back row of the gallery—no easy ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... were capable at nineteen. He was telling her what a high profession the actor's was, how great he was as an actor, how commonplace her life there, how beautiful he could make it if only he had money. It was an experience to hear Mr. Feuerstein say the word "money." Elocution could go no further in surcharging five letters with contempt. His was one of those lofty natures that scorn all such matters of intimate concern to the humble, hard-pressed little human animal as food, clothing and shelter. He so loathed money ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... are too monotonous, too singsong, to dead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural; it could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never saw a case. What the nation do you suppose is the matter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... day, "I wish I had a place of my own. What is the reason I can't? A girl can go in for Art, and set up a studio; or she can go to Rome, and sculp, and study; she can learn elocution, and read, whether people want to be read to or not; and all that is Progress and Woman's Rights; why can't ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... language, but courteous and kind in manner. I relieved Mrs. Fosdyke from anxiety by informing her that we had a professor of elocution at school. And then I was left to improve my acquaintance ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... herself as being consumptive, and as being subject to an effusion of blood from the lungs; about the last condition, one would think, poor woman, for the exercise of public elocution as ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... her previous productions, but we always liked Miss Fischer, with her bouncing good nature, her intelligent outlook, her curious untrammeled demeanor, always suggestive of a huge schoolgirl suddenly let loose; her capital elocution and her agreeable way of insistently seeming at home. In "The School for Husbands," these qualities appeared quite relevantly. This strange season, now over, which has snuffed out so many poor, feeble little stars, has ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... begins to influence our ripening youth, as it did the youth of our nation in the sixteenth century, and delight in dramatic poetry follows as a natural consequence—and last, but not least, as the fruit of all these changes, a vigorous and matured prose. For indeed, as elocution is the highest melody, so is true prose the highest poetry. Consider how in an air, the melody is limited to a few arbitrary notes, and recurs at arbitrary periods, while the more scientific the melody becomes, the more numerous and nearly allied are the notes employed, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... with Mr. IRVING'S earlier performance remarked a gain in depth and fire and a happier restraint of mannerism. It was a very notable and gracious piece of work. He has the player's first gift, an arresting personality. His elocution has distinction. He conveys the beauty of the words and the richness of the packed thought thoughtfully. The complex play of action and motive—the purpose blunted by overmuch thinking, the spurs to dull revenge, the self-contempt, the assumed antic disposition, at times the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 2, 1917 • Various
... it may be remarked that he had devoted a long life to elocution, and produced a bulky manual full of illustrative quavers. And as it happened that his work was the first of the sort published in America, it obtained a pretty general circulation in schools and colleges, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... hobjection to this," or "a 'atred for that," or would give "an 'int which might be useful" to the lady when she removed. The young ladies were heard tittering very much whenever Mrs. H. broke out, in a loud voice, with her imperfect elocution, and I felt so much annoyed, that I determined to cure her ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... highest interpretation,—or, at least, from sustaining it, without sharp falsetto effort, throughout the entire passage of a play. In a few impersonations, where Kemble, with all his mannerisms and defective elocution, and Macready, notwithstanding his uninspired, didactic nature, were most at their ease and successful, this actor would be somewhat put to his mettle,—a fact of which he is probably ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... of Oliver Optic, gives every other week a selection for Declamation, marked for delivery according to the most approved rules of elocution; 26 MARKED ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, and the Baron d'Holbach. She had "created" Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide and the composer had said of her, "If it had not been for the voice and elocution of Mlle. Arnould, my Iphigenie would never have been performed in France." In her youth she had interested not only Marie Antoinette but also the King, and she had been the object of Mme. de Pompadour's suspicion and Mme. du Barry's rage. Garrick declared her a better actress than Clairon. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... recollection, and are necessarily therefore most imperfect. The best-known specimen of Pitt's eloquence, his reply to the sneers of Horatio Walpole at his youth and declamatory manner, which has found a place in so many handbooks of elocution, is evidently, in form at least, the work, not of Pitt, but of Dr Johnson, who furnished the report to the Gentleman's Magazine. Probably Pitt did say something of the kind attributed to him, though even this is by no means certain in view of Johnson's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... when he perused the affidavit of Mr Mead, importing that the said Clinker was not the person that robbed him on Blackheath; and honest Humphry was discharged. When he came home, he expressed great eagerness to pay his respects to his master, and here his elocution failed him, but his silence was pathetic; he fell down at his feet and embraced his knees, shedding a flood of tears, which my uncle did not see without emotion. He took snuff in some confusion; and, putting his hand in his pocket, gave him his blessing in something more substantial ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... unweariedly, and so unblameably. Two things (rarely to be found in one man) were eminent in him, viz. a quick invention and sound judgment, and these accompanied with a homely but clear expression, and graceful elocution; so that such as knew him best were in a strait whether to admire him most for his penetrating wit and sublime genius in the schools, and peculiar exactness in disputes and matters of controversy, or his familiar condescension in the pulpit, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... more than elocution, masterly elocution as it is, more than the superbly modulated voice: the power comes of spiritual springs welling up beneath the voice—springs fed from those infinite sources which "lie beyond ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... discipline consists in exercise, how perfection comes from experience, and how unity is the last effort of judgment. When Fox meditated on a history which should last with the language, he met his evil genius in this new province. The rapidity and the fire of his elocution were extinguished by a pen unconsecrated by long and previous study; he saw that he could not class with the great historians of every great people; he complained, while he mourned over the fragment of genius which, after such zealous preparation, he ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... sly glance out of the corners of our eyes at our leader. But Ed knew just what to do. He faced about sharply, and made a low bow to the lady, took the flag held out to him, and then made a speech. Ed Ross was always a fine talker, and had won the elocution prize at school the year before. On this occasion he fairly surpassed himself. I have often thought of it since. At our next meeting we unanimously elected Miss Katherine Burke McDermott an honorary member of the Rifles. Tom Ryland's sister drew up the ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... make easier henceforward for any woman who felt she had something to say to stand up and say it. I felt very nervous, and as if my knees were giving way; but I did not show any nervousness. I read the lecture, but most of the quotations I recited from memory. Not having had any lessons in elocution, I trusted to my natural voice, and felt that in this new role the less gesticulation I used the better. Whether the advice of Demosthenes is rightly translated or not—first requisite, action; second, action; third, action—I am sure that English word ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... his deepest insight; the use of borrowed materials which offend his sense of literary equity; an emotive intensity which exaggerates his conscious sensibility; an impetuosity of delivery which overworks his thought; gestures and looks put on for scenic effect; an eccentric elocution, which no human nature ever fashioned; even a shrug of the shoulder, thought of and planned for beforehand—these are causes of enervation in sermons which may be otherwise well framed and sound in stock. They sap a preacher's personality and neutralise his ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... sort of radiance about him, as if emanating from his genius. We had never seen him before; we only knew his works, but he seemed like a friend immediately. Listening to his fluent, felicitous talk, his clear and energetic elocution, his original ideas and veins of thought, was a rare treat, and his keen enjoyment of recovered health and active life was really infectious. He could not remain seated, but walked and smoked the whole of the afternoon he remained with us. Knowing that he had lately been ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... critical moment after the second lesson was reached with dreadful celerity. Doctor Parsons, having read a chapter from the New Testament, which he emerged from the congregation to do, and which he did ill, though he prided himself upon his elocution, returned to his seat as the Vicar rose, adjusted his double eyeglasses and gave out ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... allowed the elocution teacher and directress to do was to put on my make-up for me ... including the sticking to my face of a ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... same time Art began to call him— Pictures began to appeal to him. Statues beckoned to him. Music maddened him, and any form of Recitation or Elocution drove ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... who has been studying elocution under a graduate of the Old Bowery, and has acquired a most tragic croak, which, with a little rouge and burnt cork, and haggard hair, gives him a truly awful aspect, remarked that the soil of the South was clotted with blood by fiends in human shape, (sensation in the diplomatic gallery.) The metaphor ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various |
