INTRODUCTION.

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IT is not the intention of the author, to do more, in this brief introduction, than to offer a few practical remarks on the subject of Elocution, and to give a few directions to students, to guide them in the choice and declamation of the pieces contained in this volume.

Within the space allotted to such an introduction, it would be difficult to present a system of elocution, or even a concise set of rules to compass the whole subject. This is the duty and province of the professed elocutionist; and it is hoped this book may fall into the hands of many such, in order that it may meet with proper illustration and use. Such instructors agree, however, in asserting and in teaching, that nature is the basis of true elocution, and that she only needs the guiding and controlling hand of art to mature her powers. And here let it be observed, that, as good habits and gentle manners in life are obtained by long culture, beginning in our earliest youth, so elocution, which is the application of good manners to the delivery of discourse, should be commenced early in life, and made the subject of constant practice in schools and institutions of learning.

I. The first direction offered to the student is, to select his piece according to a fair estimate of his own powers. Do not attempt a difficult piece at first; begin with the simplest, and pass gradually to those which demand more thought, action, and culture.

When chosen, let the piece be read with great care, before the effort is made to memorize it. Put yourself, as far as possible, into the position of the orator or author, and attain to the spirit which animated him. By this means you find the natural emphasis, that which the thought requires, and the first great lesson which the declamation was designed to teach is already learned. With many

students the first step is to learn, parrot-like, the words of the speech, with as little regard to its meaning as though it had none, leaving the understanding and due expression of it for after consideration. This is inverting the true order, and makes it difficult to invest the unintelligible words with their real meaning afterwards.

II. It seems almost unnecessary to say that the next important step is to learn it thoroughly. But this is no truism. Leaving out of the account those who break down, when called upon the platform, in the middle of the speech, how many there are who betray painfully to the audience, by their lack-lustre eye, and hesitating manner, that their thoughts are not addressed to them, but are busy drawing up from the wells of memory something which needs the constant effort, and is resistant of it at the end of every period. The appearance of this should be avoided, by so thorough a memorizing as to make the matter of the speech your own.

It has been said, put yourself into the orator's place: By this is meant only to think and feel as he must have done; and then to render his thought yourself, not as he rendered it, but as it ought to be rendered. It cannot be doubted that many a school-boy does more oratorical justice to Burke or Macaulay than those speakers did to themselves.

III. Having thoroughly prepared, and intelligently appreciated the piece, the next and the true objective part of the elocution, is its delivery. In this comprehensive term are included the management of the voice; the use of the hands, the eyes, and the person, all which are included in the word gesture.

Of the Voice. The general discussion of this subject is based upon a division of voice according to its quality and its power. By quality is meant the character of the voice itself as smooth or rough, as harsh or melodious, as guttural or nasal. By power is meant its ability to give greater or less volume of sound, as loud or soft. Little need be said of the quality in this connection; by constant practice and training much may be done to correct the unpleasant characteristics-to make a harsh voice smooth, and a rough one melodious.

In speaking of the power of the voice, it is observed that it is of great importance to give a sufficient volume of voice to fill the hall in which the declamation is made, to be heard by the audience, without requiring an intensity of listening attention, as where the sound is barely loud enough to be heard with effort.

Articulation, or Enunciation.-By articulation is meant the clear utterance of every part of each word, so that if the sound be heard, the word will be also heard and understood. This is not unfrequently called clear enunciation. Many persons have quite enough volume of voice, but, by reason of their want of proper enunciation, especially of final consonants, they make a jumble of sounds quite as indistinct as those which are almost inaudible. Sometimes this proceeds from what is called mouthing: from opening the mouth too wide in speaking, and from a want of vigor and exactness in the use of the lips and tongue, as in sounding p and b, d and t, and making the distinction between them respectively. A clear enunciation frequently makes a speaker heard without much power of voice: an adjustment should be made between the two, so as not to exert the voice more than is evidently required.

Another direction is as to the modulation of the voice. By this something more is meant than an adaptation of the sound to the character of the thought in different sentences or clauses. As a matter of practice it is found that some persons find it very difficult to get out of a continued monotone, one dead level of voice, like a song all on one note; or with a slight cadence of intonation which recurs at the end of every sentence, or alternate sentence, until it becomes extremely painful to the ear, and mars the thought entirely. Others begin on a medium note, and in a long paragraph find themselves falling lower and lower, until they fall below the compass of their voice into an impracticable bass. Others, still, with fine voices, seem to lose control over them, and they run up and down the oratorical gamut like the singular sounds of a wind harp.

It must rest with professed elocutionists, with copious vocal illustrations, to teach the proper modulation of the voice, as it must necessarily vary with each piece to be declaimed.

In the consideration of the voice are also included the subjects of accent, emphasis, and inflection, which can only be thoroughly taught by an elocutionist. Nature, however, which dietates our emphasis and inflection in ordinary conversation, or in the earnest, unaffected speech of the common people, is the foundation of this instruction. By accent is meant the stress laid upon one or more syllables of a word. By emphasis is meant the increase of force given to a word by a louder sound, or by a pause upon it, to mark it as the principal word in the sentence. Sometimes there are

more emphatic words than one in a sentence, and differences of emphasis, which should be distinctly marked.

There is such a thing as too much emphasis; there are certain speakers who dwell upon more than half the words in a sentence, giving a sort of hammering and jerking sound, peculiarly disagreeable. It is greatly better to have too little than too much, for in the clear and well-enunciated utterance, the hearer will supply his own emphasis; but there is a just medium, which, by marking the few words of decided importance, gives great force and vigor to the expression.

By inflection is meant the rise or fall of the voice on a particular word, to give a certain effect. It is usual to express inflection by the grave and acute accent, thus: and. Thus, a direct question ends with the rising inflection; and the direct answer usually with the falling: "Where have you been? I have been in the country." But this is not universal. The nature of the

question and answer, and of the circumstances, must decide the character of the inflection. A false inflection frequently alters the meaning of a sentence entirely; delicate adaptations and changes of inflection give great variety and interest to speech.

It is chiefly in poetry that young speakers are led into false emphasis and inflection, by reason of the rhythm and the rhyme, which seem to demand a sort of invariableness of emphasis, as at the cæsural pauses, and of inflection, with the rhyme. This is wrong; we should not neglect the rhythm or the recurring cadence entirely, nor should we be so bound by it as to spoil the connection and the sense.

IV. The next important topic is gesture, and here the most. deplorable diffidence often seizes the young declaimer. Gesture should speak to the eye what the words do to the ear, and consequently the action of the body must harmonize with the thought which is uttered. Gesture, in its widest compass, subsidizes the whole body to give force and expression to the speech. It is not the arms and hands alone which the orator should use, but he should make the head, the eye, the muscles of the face, the shoulders, the chest, the attitude, the feet, do their important part in acting out and illustrating the spoken thought. A toss of the head betrays indifference; a contracted brow denotes displeasure; a dilated eye tells of astonishment; a distension of the nostrils evinces alarm; a curled lip betokens disdain; a compressed mouth indicates firmness; a shrug of the shoulders expresses doubt; the

chest thrown forward shows manliness; an erect bearing evinces ity; a well-planted foot marks strength of purpose; and a frequent change of position betrays restlessness and irresolution. These, in all their possible varieties and combinations, in connection with the arms, the great levers of oratory, should be cultivated by the student who would learn the art of gesture. The errors to be avoided, are, too much action, constrained action, inappropriate action, forced action, untimely action; and the points to be cultivated, are, graceful action, illustrative action, variety, freedom, and naturalness of action: thus we should judiciously adapt the signlanguage of gesture to the word-language of the lips.

The student cannot be too earnestly advised, after all that has been said, to cultivate a deliberate and poised manner. Most beginners find themselves hurrying over the pieces, with a constantly increasing momentum, which threatens destruction to all understanding of the piece. This can be avoided by deliberation.

Most of what has been said has particular reference to the declamation of prose pieces really addressed-as are the efforts of the rostrum, the pulpit, and the bar-to the persons of the hearers.

Poetry, notwithstanding its divorce from music, addresses itself to the heart of every reader; but has an indefiniteness of aim, and an impersonality, when recited before an audience. The words in a certain sense are not directly addressed by the speaker to the audience, but cast forth like a melody upon the air, and designed, like music, to claim for itself, and not him who pronounces it, the meed of praise and admiration.

Poetry requires, therefore, a less personal, less direct utterance, it should be recited, and not declaimed; the general rules of expression are, however, the same; but the tone of the voice is more nearly akin to music than ordinary speech. Let the prosody be carefully observed; give every line its proper part in the melody, but do not spoil the sense by a sing-song cadence, too commonly indulged in by beginners.

To the drama, the directions already given refer: but there is one important difference. In oratory, we immediately address and are concerned about the audience before us; what we say is entirely for them and to them; the orator is in the closest personal communication with those before him; and in poetry, the beautiful thoughts uttered in musical speech are for the behoof of the hearers; but in the drama, by a fiction of the play, each speaker is