TENTH LESSON

PART 1. DRILL

1. Physical Culture. Relax the arms at the sides; inhale deeply while raising the arms sidewise to a horizontal position; hold the breath and tense the arms until they tremble. Exhale quietly while dropping the arms to the sides.

2. Deep Breathing. Count in a loud whisper 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, taking a breath through the nostrils between each numeral.

3. Voice Exercise. Explode the following elements, first in whisper, then in a clear-cut voice, using abdominal breathing throughout:

4. Articulation. The sound of R should receive the student's particular attention. It is formed by a trill at the tip of the tongue, and according as the tongue is made to vibrate at a point between the hard and soft palate it is called dental R or palatal R. Examples: bird, serf, oral, array, urge, mourn, verse, scarce, earth, verb, curl, pearl, arm, far, war, raw, grow, cry, pardon, roar. The R glide occurs where a long vowel immediately precedes it. Examples: appear, cheer, mere, poor, tour, your, expire, force.

attire, demure, zero. The letter R usually suggests vigor, authority, and emphasis. To suppress it when it should be pronounced is effeminate. As Spurgeon said: "Abhor the practise of some men who will not bring out the letter R.” Do not say mussy for mercy, fust for first, thuffore for therefore, New Yohk for New York, yuuz for years, nor insert R, as, idear for idea, lawr for law, and commer for

comma.

PART 2. EXPRESSION

GROUPING

This word has been borrowed from the art of painting, and is peculiarly applicable to the art of reading and speaking. In a painting you will observe that some figures are grouped together, or possibly placed in the background. So it is in expressing the thoughts of a passage. Certain words must be grouped together, because the thoughts belong together, and some words are to be given special prominence while others are to be subordinated. No arbitrary rules can be given for grouping, but if you closely analyze an extract you should be able to determine for yourself the proper divisions and disposition of the various thoughts. You must bend your intelligence to the passage under consideration, and before attempting to read it aloud, be quite sure that you have grasped its significance.

EXAMPLES FOR PRACTISE

1. Words are, as Wordsworth has happily said, "the incarnation of thought." Indeed, words, in themselves, are nothing. more than "mouthfuls of spoken wind," the sons and daughters of the tongue and lungs. They are hardened into consistency by a process of pens, ink, and paper. In this state they take form. But naturally they are immaterial substances, like

thoughts. The sculptor embodies an idea in marble, and we discriminate between the essence and the form. Why should we not also distinguish between a word spoken or conceivedbetween the body and the soul of an expulsion of air? Words, in truth, are entities, real existences, immortal beings; and, tho I would not go the whole length of Hazlitt, in saying that they are the only things that live forever, I would indicate their title to a claim in the eternities of this world, and defend them from the cavils of presumption and ignorance.

"Words."

WHIPPLE.

2. A condemned man was led out for execution. He had taken human life, but under circumstances of the greatest provocation, and public sympathy was active in his behalf. Thousands had signed petitions for a reprieve, a favorable answer had been expected the night before, and tho it had not come, even the sheriff felt confident that it would yet arrive in season. Thus the morning passed without the appearance of the messenger. The last moment was up. The prisoner took his place on the drop, the cap was drawn over his eyes, the bolt was drawn, and a lifeless body swung revolving in the wind. Just at that moment a horseman came into sight, galloping down hill, his steed covered with foam. He carried a packet in his right hand, which he waved rapidly to the crowd. He was the express rider with the reprieve. But he had come too late. A comparatively innocent man had died an ignominious death because a watch had been five minutes too slow, making its bearer arrive behind time.

"Behind Time."

FREEMAN HUNT.

3. One great benefit to be expected from giving to women the free use of their faculties, by leaving them the free choice of their employments, and opening to them the same field of occupation and the same prizes and encouragements as to other human beings, would be that of doubling the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity. Where there is now one person qualified to benefit mankind and promote the general improvement as a public teacher, or an ad

ministrator of some branch of public and social affairs, there would then be a chance of two. Mental superiority of any kind is at present everywhere so much below the demand; there is such a deficiency of persons competent to do excellently anything which it requires any considerable amount of ability to do, that the loss to the world, by refusing to make use of onehalf of the whole quantity of talent it possesses, is extremely serious. It is true that this amount of mental power is not totally lost; much of it is employed, and would in any case be employed, in domestic management, and in the few occupations open to women, and from the remainder indirect benefit is in many individual cases obtained through the personal influence of individual women over individual men. But these benefits are partial; their range is extremely circumscribed; and if they must be admitted, on the one hand, as a deduction from the amount of fresh social power that would be acquired by giving freedom to one-half of the whole sum of human intellect, there must be added, on the other, the benefits of the stimulus that would be given to the intellect of men by the competition; or (to use a more true expression) by the necessity that would be imposed on them of deserving precedency before they could expect to obtain it. JOHN STUART MILL.

"Advantages of Enlarging the Intellectual Sphere of Woman."

4. The only accession which the Roman empire received during the first century of the Christian era was the province of Britain. In this single instance the successors of Cæsar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing, tho doubtful, intelligence of a pearl-fishery attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. The various tribes of Briton possest

valor without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness, they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the imperial generals, who maintained the national glory when the throne was disgraced by the weakest or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampian Hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to complete and insure his success by the easy reduction of Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few auxiliaries were sufficient. The western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of freedom was on every side removed from before their eyes.

EDWARD GIBBON. From "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."