"Elocution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... elementa. Elephant elefanto. Elevate altigi. Elevation (height) altajxo. Elf koboldo, feino. Elicit eltiri. Elide elizii. Eligible elektebla. Eligibility elektebleco. Eliminate elmeti. Elision elizio. Elite eminentularo. Ell ulno. Ellipse elipso. Elm ulmo. Elocution parolscienco. Eloquence elokventeco. Eloquent elokventa. Elope forkuri. Else alie. Elsewhere aliloke. Elude lerte eviti. Emaciated malgrasega. Emanate deveni. Emancipate liberigi. Embalm balzamumi. Embankment surbordo bordmarsxejo. Embark ensxipigxi. Embarrass embarasi. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... creature in what other branches of education she instructed her pupils? 'The modern languages,' says she modestly: 'French, German, Spanish, and Italian, Latin and the rudiments of Greek if desired. English of course; the practice of Elocution, Geography, and Astronomy, and the Use of the Globes, Algebra (but only as far as quadratic equations); for a poor ignorant female, you know, Mr. Snob, cannot be expected to know everything. Ancient and Modern History no ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... led to an early study of singers and actors and their performances; it gave rise to an effort to form a voice that would meet the requirements of an unusually sensitive ear; it led to the practice and teaching of elocution, and, later, to much communion with voice-users, both singers and speakers. In the meantime came medical practice, with speedy specialization as a laryngologist, when there were daily consultations ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... "we shall see what the grand movement will bring about, and the results of the lessons in elocution." ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... 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
... who had received his education, in England, at the inns of court; and had been appointed a member of the council soon after his arrival in Virginia. Young, bold, and ambitious; possessing an engaging person, and commanding elocution; he was well calculated to rouse and direct the passions of the people. Treading the path by which ambition marches to power, he harangued the people on their grievances, increased their irritation against the causes of their disgust, and ascribed the evils with which ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... 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 ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... listened with the fascination of terror; the sentences seemed terribly severe, and out of all proportion to the offences. Suddenly his own name was called. His name had been called in public places before: at the school exhibitions, where he had taken prizes in elocution and composition; in church, once, when the minister had mentioned him for peculiar efficiency and zeal among other Sabbath-school teachers. It was sacred to him for his father's sake, who fell in the war, and who was recorded in it on the ugly, pathetic monument on the ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... 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 ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... innocent you are, Betty Wales," declared Bob. "Have you forgotten that you are on the all-powerful play-committee, and that you five and Miss Kingston, head of the elocution department, practically decide upon ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... to make both consent In sense and elocution; and aspire, As well to reach the spirit that was spent In his example, as with art to pierce His grammar, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... air passages, both below and above the vibrating cords, act as resonators, or resounding chambers, and intensify and modify the sounds produced by the cords. It is this fact that prompts skillful teachers of music and elocution to urge upon their pupils the necessity of the mouth being properly opened during speech, and ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... hir indeede? To be plaine, I am voyde of al judgement, if your nine Com{oe}dies, whereunto, in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses, and (in one man's fansie not unworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes Com{oe}dies, eyther for the finenesse of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that Elvish queene doth to his Orlando Furioso, which notwithstanding, you will needes seem to emulate, and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters. Besides that, you know it hath bene the usual practise ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... short and necessarily imperfect exposition of the art of reading therein given. The more familiar he is with the scientific principles the more successfully will he be able to direct the studies and practices of his pupils. Works on elocution are numerous and accessible. Dr. Rush's Philosophy of the Voice is perhaps the foundation of all subsequent good work in the exposition of voice culture. Professor Murdoch's Analytic Elocution is an exhaustive and scholarly treatise based upon it, and to the plan of treatment ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... happened to be named for St. Valentine, and why he was chosen as the patron saint of love. Then she read them some celebrated valentines written by great poets, and the girls had to read them after her, with great care as to their elocution. ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... "I had it fixed up, as soon as I got wise to what was going to happen. The voice is one of the girls in my office, over at the brewery. Pronunciation, grammar, elocution and everything correct." ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... and personal beauty in this maid of but twenty made her an attractive flower in bloom to others than the king. The wits and gallants of the gay city sought and courted her. The family of Tom Sheridan, the Irish actor, and then a teacher of elocution in Bath, was intimate with the Linley family. Richard, who was born in Dublin in 1751, his elder brother Charles, and Nathaniel Halhed, a companion and literary partner with Richard, all admired the daughter Eliza. Halhed went to India,—afterwards becoming a judge there,—and Charles ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... prize rhetorical exercise is called by this name; the reason is not given. The students speak of "making a rush for moonlight," i.e. of attempting to gain the prize for elocution. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... 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, and enlarged the original. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... he said reluctantly, when Elizabeth asked him a little anxiously about Mr. Carlyon's reading, "but I know you would not have questioned me if you did not want to know my real opinion. I think it is rather a pity that Mr. Carlyon has not taken elocution lessons." ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... encouragement, were done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was never priest in a salon. Until ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... Heidsieck, It was touching to observe the master's eagerness to pull himself together under the servant's eye; and when he remarked, 'I think, Teena, I'll take a brandy and soda,' he spoke like a man doubtful of his elocution, and not half ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... a rugged type of speaker who transcends and seemingly defies all rules of oratory. Such a man was the great Scottish preacher Chalmers, who was without polished elocution, grace, or manner, but who through his intellectual power and moral earnestness thrilled all ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... as soon as they are tired; but an attentive tutor will perceive when they ought to be stopped, before the utmost point of fatigue. We have heard a boy of nine years old, who had never been taught elocution by any reading master, read simple pathetic passages, and natural dialogues in "Evenings at Home," in a manner which would have made even Sterne's critic ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... who assumed the Consulship upon Caesar's death, and Hirtius, who became Consul during the next year, used to attend upon Cicero and take lessons in elocution. So at least the story has been told, from a letter written in this year to his friend Poetus; but I should imagine that the lessons were not much in earnest. "Why do you talk to me of your tunny-fish, your pilot-fish, and your cheese and sardines? Hirtius ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... The Art of Elocution, exemplified in a Simplified Course of Exercises. By Henry N. Day, Author of "Elements of the Art of Rhetoric." Revised Edition. Cincinnati. Moore, Wilstach, Keys, & Co. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... delightful talker! there was positively a 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. ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... has played an ignoble part among the nations. We have tamely submitted to seeing the weak, whom we have covenanted to protect, wronged. We have seen our men, women, and children murdered on the high seas without protest. We have used elocution ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... 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 magnetism. They are not true, ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker
... faculties of the mind is of two kinds, the one respecting understanding and reason, and the other respecting will, appetite, and affection, the imagination being active in both provinces. The intellectual arts are four—inquiry or invention, examination or judgment, custody or memory, and elocution or tradition; and these are severally divided into various sciences and arts. The knowledge of the appetite and will, or moral philosophy, leading to the culture and regiment of the ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the term "great," and yet be only a declaimer and a rhetorician. That is to say, he may be able to captivate audiences by his superior action, as Demosthenes defines oratory to be, and at the same time his elocution and rhetoric may be unexceptionable, yet he maybe in fact totally lacking in every element which goes to ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... literature; [21a] 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 of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... "I drink propitiation to you as a profissional gintle-man! No man uses more indepindent language than you do. You are under no earthly obligation to Messrs. Syntax and Prosody. Grammar, my worthy friend, is banished as an intruder from your elocution, just as you would exclude a gauger ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... or orations to the people will be of great benefit to the Senate, the prerogative, and the whole nation. To the Senate, because they will not only teach your Senators elocution, but keep the system of the government in their memories. Elocution is of great use to your Senators, for if they do not understand rhetoric (giving it at this time for granted that the art were not otherwise good) and come to treat with, or vindicate the cause ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... celebrated actor SATYRUS, in order to show him how much grace, dignity, and action add to the celebrity of a public man, repeated to him several passages from Sophocles and Euripides, which so delighted and astonished Demosthenes that he always afterwards formed his elocution and action on the models ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... asked of the blue-eyed month—and as the festival was 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 of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... 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 to "take down" ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... on elocution, Johnson said, they were a continual renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 197. See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... 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
... 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
... 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 ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... hearty "Much good may it do you, miss"; and didn't I tip her a word of Irish, which delighted her.... Our dinner-party were mamma and the two young ladies, two itinerant preceptors, a writing and elocution master, and a dancing-master, and Father Murphy, the P.P.—such fun!—and the Rev. Mr. Beaufort, the ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... offered handsome fees If Knott would get Demosthenes (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; When unbelievers void of grace Came to investigate ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Burney.) 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 ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... state of sensitiveness 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 ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the Thornes had dined at the rectory. Eleanor had been duly put to stand on her box, and in that position had found herself quite unable to express her opinion on the merits of flounces, such having been the subject given to try her elocution. Mr Arabin had of course been much in his own parish, looking to the doings at his vicarage, calling on his parishioners, and taking on himself the duties of his new calling. But still he had been every evening at Plumstead, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... his Prince and Country with a religious application and perfect integrity, he feared no one, courted no one, neglected his own fortune. Besides this, he was a person of universal worth, and in great estimation among the Literati, for his unbounded reading, his sound judgment, his great elocution, his mastery in method, his singular curiosity, and his uncommon munificence towards the advancement of learning, arts, and industry, in all degrees: to which were joined the severest morality of a philosopher, and all the polite ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... delivered his embassy, his capacity and elocution appeared so great to the Emperor, that, desirous to gain him over to his interest by any means, he bribed him at last with the honors of the wazirate, but never returned an answer to Mahmud. That prince ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... to do away with the artificial and mechanical styles of teaching.—Henry W. Smith, A.M., Professor of Elocution, Princeton University. ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... was fired with a wonderful love of Eloquence, and has long since excelled every other nation in the practice of it, yet she had all the rest of the arts much earlier; and had not only invented, but even compleated them, a considerable time before she was mistress of the full powers of elocution. But when I direct my eyes to Greece, your beloved Athens, my Atticus, first strikes my sight, and is the brightest object in my view: for in that illustrious city the orator first made his appearance, and it is there we shall find the earliest records of eloquence, and the first specimens of a ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... Hebrew 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
... all the space they can traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our stomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can think, or assimilate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of elocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because all this constitutes life. These are the true rights of man! No need to decree them, they exist ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... assembly like the 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 powers of holding breath by pronouncing ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... 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 been a general consensus of international ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... his mighty soul the fire of a generous emulation had been kindled, not to go out until his oratorical fame threw a refulgent glory on the declining fortunes of the once formidable Iroquois. In the deep and silent forest he practiced elocution, or to use his own expressive language, played Logan, until he caught the manner and tone of his great master. Unconsciously the forest orator, was an imitator of the eloquent Greek, who tuned his voice on the wild sea beach, to the thunders of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... to say in another place. I myself never heard him lecture, and can therefore give no opinion of the performance. That which I have heard from others has been very various. It is, I think, certain that he had none of those wonderful gifts of elocution which made it a pleasure to listen to Dickens, whatever he read or whatever he said; nor had he that power of application by using which his rival taught himself with accuracy the exact effect to be given to every word. The ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... nephew of her husband, was a most devoted and inseparable companion of her whole life. When she lost her sight, he used to read to her every evening. He was a poor reader; and, perceiving that she was sensitive to this defect, he secretly took lessons, at the age of sixty-four, to improve his elocution. Junot and Bernadotte were her ardent, lasting friends, and always delighted to serve her. Her rare graces, and her generous goodness to Madame Desbordes-Valmore, disarmed the prejudices and won the heart of the ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... family has jogged along at a fairly comfortable pace, only one daughter, the youngest, Mollie, having so far escaped from the traditional female employments of the region as to spend a season in New York, supplementing the grammar school education by a course in elocution, with Delsarte accompaniments. When she returned she gave her old friends to understand that she was thoroughly misunderstood by her family; also, that she was now to be called Marie and preferably Miss, hinted that she was soon going on a professional tour, ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... seasonable cause to speak, in my observations upon Horace his Art of Poetry, which, with the text translated, I intend shortly to publish. In the mean time, if in truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence, I have discharged the other offices of a tragic writer, let not the absence of these forms be imputed to me, wherein I shall give you occasion hereafter, and without my boast, to think I could better prescribe, than omit the due use for want ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... the young man proceeded, however, I perceived that his poem was, in fact, a denunciation of the horrors of war,—not, as I had supposed, the composition of another person committed to memory, and now rehearsed as an exercise in elocution, but entirely his own. It was altogether a creditable performance. The Professors at the close made their criticisms upon it, which were all highly favourable. Dr. Beecher said, "My only criticism is, Print it, print it." The venerable Doctor, with the natural partiality of a tutor, afterwards ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... Alton College, nominally a half holiday, was really a whole one. Classes in gymnastics, dancing, elocution, and drawing were held in the morning. The afternoon was spent at lawn tennis, to which lady guests resident in the neighborhood were allowed to bring their husbands, brothers, and fathers—Miss Wilson being anxious to send her pupils forth into the world free ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... have my judgement of her indeed? To be plain, I am void of all judgement, if your Nine Comedies, whereunto in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses (and in one man's fancy not unworthily), come not nearer Ariosto's comedies, either for the fineness of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that Elvish Queen doth to his Orlando Furioso, which notwithstanding you will needs seem to emulate, and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... taking occasion to remark here, that sailors, like the orientals, are exceedingly addicted to the use of tropes and figures of speech, to similes and metaphors. In fact, if any gentleman was about compiling a treatise on elocution, I would recommend to him to pass a year or two on board one of our men of war, where he would daily hear specimens of eloquence, known and unknown to exclusively terrestrial orators, whether in the halls of Congress, at a public dinner-table, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... not want ambition or vanity, was desirous to make himself conspicuous, and to show how worthy he was of high preferment. As he thought himself qualified to become a popular preacher, he displayed his elocution with great success in the pulpits of London; but the Queen's death putting an end to his expectations, abated his diligence; and Pope represents him as falling from that time into intemperance of wine. That in his latter life ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... rendition a critic says, "He had all the 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 his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... dwelling without deranging one graceful fold of his swaying robe or unclasping the hands folded quietly on his bosom. Well has a modern master of art and style said of these old artists, "Many pictures are ostentatious exhibitions of the artist's power of speech, the clear and vigorous elocution of useless and senseless words; while the earlier efforts of Giotto and Ciniabue are the burning messages of prophecy delivered by the stammering lips ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... at the door. I've just come from my lawyer, auntie, and, 'Please, ma'am, I ain't got nothink 't all. Flowers, lady? Buttonhole, gentleman? Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor widow?' Do I do it nicely, auntie, or, as a bread-winner accomplishment, were my lessons in elocution entirely wasted?" ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... assistants as they embraced themselves wildly. "Oh! Oh! Caput's practisin'! Just listen to 'im! Ain't he the little cuckoo! Bet he's takin' lessons in elocution! But won't old Tutt just ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... Schemes oppress'd, When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request. Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th' 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 pow'rful Breath, And restless Fire precipitates on Death. [Footnote a: ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... requiring little enforcement; while, the main thing demanded of them being sermons in some sense their own—honey culled at least by their own bees, and not bought in jars, much was said about the plan and composition of sermons, about style and elocution, and action—all plainly and confessedly, with a view to pulpit-success—the lowest of all low successes, and ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... much to print and publish. But I have heard my father, who was his bailiff, say that he was a pleasant man, and was fond of reciting old scraps of poetry, which he did with great energy; indeed, Mr. Darrell declares that it was the noticing, in his father's animated and felicitous elocution, the effects that voice, look, and delivery can give to words, which made Mr. Darrell himself the fine speaker he is. But I can only recollect the antiquary as a very majestic gentleman, with a long pigtail—awful, rather, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... always distrustful of their powers and look upon their lack of confidence as a weakness or lack of ability, when it may indicate quite the reverse. By teaching children early the arts of social life, such as boxing, horseback riding, dancing, elocution, and similar accomplishments, we may do much to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... disinclination of the Shepperton parishioners generally to dim the unique glory of St Lawrence, rendered the Church and Constitution an affair of their business and bosoms. A zealous Evangelical preacher had made the old sounding-board vibrate with quite a different sort of elocution from Mr. Gilfil's; the hymn-book had almost superseded the Old and New Versions; and the great square pews were crowded with new faces from distant corners of ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Primus; Jacob's Latin Reader, (first part); Modern Geography; Intellectual and Practical Arithmetic finished; Dr. Barber's Grammar of Elocution; Writing, Spelling, Composition, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... perpetuated remarkable deeds. What would have become of the names of Rustam, Cyrus, and Afraciab, if eloquence had not preserved their memory like the recital of a remote dream? It is by the pearls of elocution that the sweet relations between distant friends are preserved. The study of this sublime art is like a market always filled with buyers. It will remain in the world as long as the ear shall be sensible to harmony, or the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... down alone in a corner. Presently the French actor began to give one of his famous monologues. She heard his wonderfully varied elocution, his voice—intelligence made audible and dashed with flying lights of humour rising and falling subtly, yet always with a curious sound of inevitable simplicity. She heard gentle titterings from the concealed audience, then a definite ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... of the chest, with a speakin' tube runnin' up to the 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... life 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 it ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... 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 ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... May the writer ask indulgence while he recalls how, exactly fifty-eight years ago, as senior boy at Winchester, he recited this Satire publicly, receiving in recompense at Warden Barter's hands the Queen's silver medal for elocution.] ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... (I speak as I think)! though I am fond enough of myself, I dare not say that I excel in beauty that bull which carried Europa. For the question here is not concerning our genius and elocution, but our species and figure. If we could make and assume to ourselves any form, would you be unwilling to resemble the sea-triton as he is painted supported swimming on sea-monsters whose bodies are partly human? Here I touch on a difficult point; for so great ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of local understanding, of wits and reasoners, 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... 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 ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown
... conducted with a keen eye to effect. Members who had a sense of beauty made their speeches beautiful, and even those to whom it was denied did their best. Grace of ample gesture was cultivated, and sonorous elocution, and lucid ordering of ideas, and noble language. In fact, there was a school of oratory. This is no mere superstition, bred of man's innate tendency to exalt the past above the present. It is a fact that can easily be verified through contemporary records. It is a fact which ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... filled. Madame presented herself in that black velvet costume 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." This dictum was received ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... of stage representation reduces everything to a controversy of elocution. Every character, from the boisterous blasphemings of Bajazet to the shrinking timidity of womanhood, must play the orator. The love-dialogues of Romeo and Juliet, those silver-sweet sounds of lovers' tongues ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... conceptions, and the meanness and misery of his state; for this reason, a few passages are selected from the Night Thoughts, which, with those from Akenside, seem to form a complete view of the powers, situation, and end of man." Exercises for Improvement in Elocution, p. 66. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... cheese, Fat Jack, the stone-cutter, read to them one of Mr. John Bright's speeches. The Squire did not exactly know, or care to know, who Mr. John Bright might be, but he gathered enough from Fat Jack's guttural elocution to cause uneasiness. He declared that if ever the postman brought such a thing into the village again he would never allow a letter to be delivered on his estate. But with all this bluster, the common people knew that their landlord wished them well, and they were ready ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... "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 ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... her, for she got few. Her life was rather a dreary one, as the life of an elocution teacher may well be. At one time she had dreamed of the stage, but her voice was not quite big enough for that, some managers had said, and indeed her mettle was perhaps a little too fine for the stage. The positive ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... happy 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 felt emotion ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... poetical numbers, particularly where the sentiments are pathetic, it is scarce credible upon how minute an article of sound depends their greatest beauty or inaffection. The voice of a singer is not more strictly tied to time and tune than that of an actor in theatrical elocution. The least syllable too long, or too slightly dwelt upon in a period, depreciates it to nothing; which very syllable, if rightly touched, shall, like the heightening stroke of light from a master's pencil, give life and spirit to the whole. I never heard a line ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... other the rest of the company followed the Ablewhites, till we had the whole tale of them complete. Including the family, they were twenty-four in all. It was a noble sight to see, when they were settled in their places round the dinner-table, and the Rector of Frizinghall (with beautiful elocution) rose and said grace. ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... 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
... was a professional, having studied elocution in Milwaukee, disapproved of Carol's enthusiasm for recent plays. Miss Stowbody expressed the fundamental principle of the American drama: the only way to be artistic is to present Shakespeare. As no one listened to her she sat back and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... supposed myself to possess this gift. The instruction which I had in my youth, especially that at Harvard, either in composition or elocution, was, I think, not only of no advantage, but a positive injury. Besides the absence of good training, I had an awkward manner, and a harsh voice. Until quite late in life I never learned to manage ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... longing eye; yet first Pausing a while, thus to herself she mused. Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits, Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired; 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 he also, who forbids thy use, Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree Of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil; ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... A course in elocution was recommended to Brent by the managers, and he fell in with this plan delightedly, but after two or three elementary bouts with the vowel sounds, long and short, consonants, sonant and surd, he concluded that mere articulation could be ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the SIXTH READER, the introductory matter has been retained with but little change, and it will he found very valuable for elocutionary drill. In the preparation of this portion of the work, free use was made of the writings of standard authors upon Elocution, such as Walker, McCulloch, Sheridan Knowles, Ewing, Pinnock, Scott, Bell, Graham, Mylins, Wood, Rush, and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... always be considered a great poet during his lifetime and flattered as Martmontel was flattered, were only the wrong side of his brilliant qualities. Without his vanity and his magniloquence it is possible that he might never have acquired the sonorous elocution which is so useful and even necessary an instrument in political life. His cold-bloodedness touched at certain points on rectitude and loyalty; his ostentation had a lining of generosity. Results, we must remember, are to the profit of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... opposition, and was finally rejected.] carried to such a height as in this sessions; the House seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at night. From these contests, the desire of improving in the article of elocution is become very general. There are no less than five persons of rank and fortune now waiting my leisure to become my pupils. Remember me to all friends, particularly to our good landlord and landlady. I am, with love and blessing to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... were discussed with an energy of utterance, and a fitness of speech, which would have put to shame the general elocution of both the pulpit and the bar. At length, however, a certain semi (second-classman, or more popularly sheep) stood up to give his opinion on some subject in dispute, and attempting to speak too soon after his dinner, for he was one of the more fashionable order, hemmed and stammered ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... as students would, in after life, have the honour of addressing so great a multitude of their fellow-countrymen, I should certainly advise the authorities of the college to erect a chair for teaching the art of elocution—(applause)—so that the volume of the voice might be increased to reach much further than I am afraid is possible for me to-day. But let me join with you in wishing continued success to the Queen's College University at Kingston—(applause)—to associate myself with you in the hope that this new ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Sysiphus forgets his load. Hither and thither from the sevenfold road Some cart or waggon crosses, which divides The close-wedged audience; but, as when the tides To ploughing ships give way, the ship being past, They re-unite, so these unite as fast. The older Songstress hitherto hath spent Her elocution in the argument Of their great Song in prose; to wit, the woes Which Maiden true to faithless Sailor owes— Ah! "Wandering He!"—which now in loftier verse Pathetic they alternately rehearse. All ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... whispering and laughing, Jacqueline recited, in a soft voice, and with feeling that did credit to her instructor in elocution, Mademoiselle X——, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... seldom agreeable in private conversation, whether their faculty be natural, or acquired by practice and often venturing. Natural elocution, although it may seem a paradox, usually springeth from a barrenness of invention and of words, by which men who have only one stock of notions upon every subject, and one set of phrases to express them in, they swim upon the superficies, and offer themselves on every occasion; therefore, ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift
... Kelson sighed, his eyes glistening at the sight of so many pretty upturned faces. "Go on, old man!" he added, giving Curtis a nudge. "Fire away, and show them you know a bit about elocution, for ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... 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. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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, ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... Enemy; nor between abstaining from Injury, and pardoning it in others. There is therefore no such Inconsistence of Humane Nature, with Civill Duties, as some think. I have known cleernesse of Judgment, and largenesse of Fancy; strength of Reason, and gracefull Elocution; a Courage for the Warre, and a Fear for the Laws, and all eminently in one man; and that was my most noble and honored friend Mr. Sidney Godolphin; who hating no man, nor hated of any, was unfortunately slain in the beginning of the late Civill warre, in ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... or prompts the suppliant voice. How nations sink, by darling schemes oppress'd, When vengeance listens to the fool's request. Fate wings with ev'ry wish th' 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 pow'rful breath, And restless fire precipitates on death. [b]But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold; Wide wasting pest! that rages unconfin'd, And crowds with crimes the records of mankind; For ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... clamoring for meetings. Fortunately I had learned how to protect my voice. In the course of the campaign every one who spoke with me lost his voice and had to return home for treatment. When I was a student at Yale the professor in elocution was an eccentric old gentleman named North. The boys paid little attention to him and were disposed to ridicule his peculiarities. He saw that I was specially anxious to learn and said: "The principal thing about ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... is a basis for every employment or activity which has to deal with enlightenment or persuasion of the public. The person who would like to become a speaker or writer needs to begin with it rather than with the study of elocution or rhetoric. The first thing essential for him to know is himself; the second, his hearers or readers—what is the order of progress in their enlightenment. Even logical development of a subject is subsidiary to the practical psychological order. Formal logic, the analysis ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... peculiarly harsh, grating voice, so that any but a very competent judge would have turned her away. But M. Choron, whose experience was great, noted the correctness of her accent and the feeling which made itself felt in every line. He accepted her as well as her sister, but urged her to study elocution ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... the crown. Her delight in amusements and in pageants was now at its highest, and it happened that the Abbe de Vaubrun, designing a spectacular piece in honor of Night, confided to me the task of writing and delivering an epilogue in that character. My stage-fright spoiled my elocution, but from that day I was entrusted with the organisation of these magnificent entertainments, and the last of them was entirely designed and written by myself. By this means I came to take a quite different place ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... pesterest me with this sorry prattle." "What more wouldst thou have?" replied he. "Allah hath bounteously bestowed on thee a Barber who is an astrologer, one learned in alchemy and white magic;[FN612] syntax, grammar, and lexicology; the arts of logic, rhetoric and elocution; mathematics, arithmetic and algebra; astronomy, astromancy and geometry; theology, the Traditions of the Apostle and the Commentaries on the Koran. Furthermore, I have read books galore and digested them and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... elocution that father owed his engagement with Macready, of whom he always spoke in terms of the most affectionate admiration in after years, and probably it did him a good turn again with Charles Kean. An actor who had supported ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... literary and scientific worm-grubber, whose maxim of life is Zwar weiss ich viel, doch moecht' ich Alles wissen (I know indeed a good deal, but I want to know Everything), wishes to profit from a lesson in elocution. A scene follows in which the contrast is graphically depicted between this half lovable, half contemptible scientific bookworm and Faust's Titanic heaven-storming aspirations after absolute truth. When he is once more left alone, longing to face the mystery ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... 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 production ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... poetry should be presented orally. The appeal is first to the ear just as in music. The teacher should read or, better, recite the poem in order to get the best results. There should be no effort at "elocution" in its worst sense, but a simple, sincere rendering of the language of the poem. The more informal the process is, the better. There should be much repetition of favorite poems, so that the rich details and pictures may sink ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... What does elocution require? 3. What is emphasis? 4. What comparative view is taken of accent and emphasis? 5. How does L. Murray connect emphasis with quantity? 6. Does emphasis ever affect accent? 7. What is the guide to a right emphasis? 8. Can one read with too many emphases? 9. What are pauses? 10. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of fatigue was united with an understanding equally vigorous and flexible. He was gifted with the faculty of method in the highest degree, and with great powers of application, which were sustained by a prodigious memory, while he could communicate his acquisitions with clear and fluent elocution. Such a man under any circumstances and in any sphere of life would probably have become remarkable. Ordained from his youth to be busied with the affairs of a great empire, such a man, after long years of observation, practice, and perpetual ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... are questions of elocution that I would like to speak to you about. I've to run away now, but ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... "School can't keep without me. And I'm going over to Sudleigh, every Saturday, to take elocution lessons. I'm having my own way, and I'm happy as a clam. Now, why can't you come and live with me? You said you would, the very ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... Miss Fanshaw: "we had not much time for reading at Suxberry House, we were so busy with our masters;—we had a charming English master though, to teach us elocution, because it's so fashionable now to read loud well. Mrs. Harcourt, isn't it odd to read English books to a French governess?" continued this young lady, whose constrained taciturnity now gave way ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... observed, more 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 ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... myself with reading a part of them. The Spectator was particularly pleasing and serviceable to me. The Abbe de Gauvon had taught me to read less eagerly, and with a greater degree of attention, which rendered my studies more serviceable. I accustomed myself to reflect on elocution and the elegance of composition; exercising myself in discerning pure French from my provincial idiom. For example, I corrected an orthographical fault (which I had in common with all Genevese) by these two lines of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Wharton, Wilmot, earl of Rochester, and Villers, duke of Buckingham, three noblemen, as eminently distinguished by their wit, taste, and knowledge, as for their extravagance, revelry, and lawless passions. In such cases, the most charming elocution, the finest fancy, the brightest blaze of genius, and the noblest burst of thoughts, call for louder vengeance, and damn them to ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis |
