"Elocutionary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... girls who stood up in a glory of golden curls, frilled petticoats, and silk stockings, to recite pathetic or comic pieces, with trained expression and practised gestures that seemed to us the perfection of the elocutionary art. We were all a little bit stage-struck after these entertainments; but what was more, we were genuinely moved by the glimpses of a fairer world than ours which we caught through the music and poetry; the world in which the beautiful ladies dwelt with the ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... she saw him summoning to his aid all his rather limited elocutionary powers, and noted how he gave to every line that verged toward love ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... apologetic manner seems to be the national custom for an exordium on all questions. Even their ablest men who have visited this country, such as Kingsley, Stanley, Arnold, Tyndall, and Coleridge, have all been criticised by the American public for their elocutionary defects. They have no speakers to compare with Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, or Anna Dickinson, although John Bright is without peer among his countrymen, as is Mrs. Besant among the women. The women, as a general rule, are more ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... crude tools of a sound-producing mechanism it will, if it chooses and has the skill, disclose some trifle of its own true nature. Phil heard words that should have sounded idiotic coming from a boy, but they carried complete and instant conviction. Without elocutionary tricks, without fire and oratory, the boy-voice had changed in timbre, acquired a quality that could sway multitudes—the wild thought crossed Phil's mind that what it had acquired was the quality ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... complete elocutionary manual comprizing numerous exercises for developing the speaking voice, deep breathing, pronunciation, vocal expression, and gesture; also selections for practise from masterpieces of ancient and modern eloquence. It ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... be able to enjoy his dinner at the same time as the elocutionary treat with which it was now accompanied, and he warmly complimented the speaker on her performance at ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... sub-heads, place hands on knees and fix Minister with steady stare. CHAPLIN advanced to table with graceful carriage and confident bearing; produced with imposing flourish a sheaf of notes, foolscap size, stoutly sewn, apparently exceeding a dozen in number; began to read with practised elocutionary art; drew the covert, "so to speak," as T. W. RUSSELL protests he said when telling the men of Manchester that WILLIAM O'BRIEN must be taken by the throat. No draw; went to next covert—I mean turned over another folio. House began to murmur; CHAPLIN, accepting involuntary applause, read on with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... fingers; his gestures were sparing and significant; his expression was so sincere that its evident devoutness commanded respect; so did his voice, which was authoritative enough to be a little priestly and lacking somewhat in elocutionary finish as the voices of ministers are apt to be, but genuine, musical, persuasive, at moments vibrant with oratorical power. He had a warm eye and a lovable smile. He was every inch a minister, but he ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... inexhaustible;—that this text-book for the school-room may become not only teacher, but friend, to those in whose hands it is placed, and while aiding, through systematic development and training of the elocutionary powers of the pupil, to overcome many of the practical difficulties of instruction, may accomplish a higher work in the ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... when she brushed her hair, and the last thing at night when she looked at herself in the glass just before turning off the gas. Her sister often read it aloud, standing behind her and rendering it with elocutionary effects. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... you that an audience may be amused and yet throw things. Were this the time and place for reminiscences, I could tell you a tale of Stony Stratford (appropriately so-called, sir), where, as 'Juba' in Mr. Addison's tragedy of Cato, for two hours I piled the Pelion of passion upon the Ossa of elocutionary correctness, still without surmounting the zone of plant life; which in the Arts, sir, must extend higher than geographers concede. And yet I evoked laughter; from which I may conclude that my efforts amused. The great Demosthenes, ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... debating has existed almost from the first days of the University, though it was only after the establishment of the Department of Oratory that instruction began to be given systematically and consecutively. Before that time, some elocutionary training had been given by Professor Moses Coit Tyler in combination with his work in English Literature, and later by President Hutchins, then instructor in Rhetoric and History, who introduced what was then known as the Junior Debates. ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... pocket, he spread it carefully upon the table. Then he adjusted his spectacles to be sure that he might see it, and walked far back on the platform and then stepped forward like this. He must have studied the subject much, for he assumed an elocutionary attitude; he rested heavily upon his left heel, slightly advanced the right foot, threw back his shoulders, opened the organs of speech, and advanced his right hand at an angle of forty-five. As he ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... the air was cool and calm, reflecting clearly and distinctly the sounds of the lowing herds and singing birds, he stood upon an eminence, and gave orders and directions to his servants at work a half mile distant from him. The strong, musical voices of the negroes responded to him. During this elocutionary morning exercise, his enunciation was clear and distinct enough to be heard over an area which ten thousand people could not have filled; and the tones of his voice were as melodious as the ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... of bamboos close to my window, and every night all the young mocking-birds gathered there to try out their voices. It was partly elocutionary and partly vocal, but almost entirely exercises—rarely did they favor me with a real song. This would go on for some time, then just as I dared to hope that lessons were over, another burst of ill-assorted trills and shrills would rouse me to fury. I kept three pairs of boots in a convenient place, ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... embody all the best elements of modern educative ideas. In the schools of St. Louis and Cleveland, over which two of them have long presided, the subject of reading has received more than usual attention, and with results that have established for them a wide reputation for superior elocutionary discipline and accomplishments. Feeling the need of a series of reading-books harmonizing in all respects with the modes of instruction growing out of their long tentative work, they have carefully prepared these volumes in the belief that the special features enumerated ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... if you speak in this elocutionary manner in the house," cried the delighted Noah, "I shall be shy of answering. I doubt, now, if the brigadier himself could repeat all you ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... through its subtile and comprehensive truth to Nature: whereas in France the masters of tragic art are but skilful reproducers of the classical drama. French tragedy is essentially artificial, grafted on the conventionalities of a distant age. It gives scope either to mere elocutionary art or melodramatic invention,—not to the universal and existing passions. There is but a slender opportunity to identify our sympathies—those of modern civilization—with what is going on. Figures in Roman togas or Grecian ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a moment and marched back on that platform, and then came forward like this—tramp, tramp, tramp. He must have studied the subject a great deal, when you come to think of it, because he assumed an "elocutionary" attitude. He rested heavily upon his left heel, threw back his shoulders, slightly advanced the right foot, opened the organs of speech, and advanced his right foot at an angle of forty-five. As he stood in that elocutionary ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... the tragedies are in rhyme, and that of the very worst description for elocutionary effect. It is the anapestic, like, as Hannah More remarks, "A cobbler there was, and he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 282, November 10, 1827 • Various |
