THE SIXTH READER.

PART FIRST.

PRINCIPLES AND EXERCISES IN ELOCUTION AND RHETORIC.

[ELOCUTION is the art of expressing thought and feeling by voice and action. The essentials of good reading, as an elocutionary exercise, are generally embraced under the following heads :--Articulation, Accent, Pauses, Emphasis, Inflections, and Tones or Modulations. The subject of ORATORY embraces, in addition to the foregoing, the employment of appropriate action or gesture in public speaking.

Correct articulation, accent, and pauses are usually learned very readily by imitation, so that, at an early period, they become a habit, and little further instruction on these points will be needed if the child is taught to speak and to read distinctly. Rules and directions as to the nature and use of gestures (except to correct bad habits) are now generally regarded as of doubtful utility at the best, if not positively detrimental to naturalness of manner. We shall therefore treat, in this portion of the work, only of Emphasis, Inflections, and Tones of the voice Although inflections and modulations always accompany emphasis, we have thought that the latter may be best studied, in the first instance, without any regard to the former.]

CHAPTER I.-EMPHASIS.

LESSON I.

1. EMPHASIS is that distinction which is given to a certain word or words in a sentence (generally by a special stress or force of voice), for the purpose of indicating more distinctly, thereby, the sense and feelings of the author. Emphatic words are often printed in italics; but when different degrees of force are to be expressed, the higher degrees may be indicated by the use of capitals-SMALLER or LARGER according to the intensity of emotion required.

The design, character, and different phases of emphasis may be shown by the following selections:

2. a. "Prosperity gains friends, and adversity tries them." b. "I do not so much request, as demand your attention."

C. "The corruption of the best things produces the

worst."

d. When our vices leave us, we flatter ourselves we leave them."

e. "The prodigal robs his heir, the miser robs himself." f. "Excess of ceremony shows want of breeding." g. "Give us liberty with laws, and government without oppression."

3. a.

"He that cannot bear a jest, should never make one." b. "It is not so easy to hide one's faults, as to mend them."

C. "He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see? he that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?"

d. "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the sun."

e. Although we cannot always win success, we may at least endeavor to merit it."

4. a.

"Each man builds his own statue,-builds himself; Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids :

Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall."

b. "A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty,

Is worth a whole eternity in bondage."

C. "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"

d. "And Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest

me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and ALTOGETHER such as I am, except these bonds."

LESSON II.

1. Upon a little examination we shall see that the emphasis, when correctly applied, always falls upon words that are in opposition to other words, or that suggest opposition in some form. Opposition of words or sentiments occurring in the same sentence is called antithesis. Although the ex

act nature of this opposition is not always apparent at first sight, yet it always exists.

2. In the following sentence,-" Evil communications corrupt good manners,"-not a single word need be made emphatic; but change it to the following,-" Evil communications corrupt good manners," with emphatic force on the first word, and an idea of opposition-that is, of the opposite effect of good communications-is at once suggested. In all the foregoing examples of emphatic force, this antithesis, either expressed or implied, may be found.

3. In the several examples of emphasis in the following verse, the antitheses are numerous, and are expressed in every instance. Without emphasis the antitheses would be meaningless.

"Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing, or in judging ill:
But of the two, less dangerous is the offence
To tire our patience, than mislead our sense;
Some few in that, but numbers err in this ;

Ten censure wrong, for one who writes amiss."-Pope.

4. Here we have, in the second line, judging opposed to writing; in the fourth line, mislead opposed to tire, and sense to patience; in the fifth line, few opposed to numbers, and this to that. In the last line, one is opposed to ten, and writes to censure; but as wrong and amiss convey the same idea,

they have no opposition to each other, and therefore should not be made emphatic.

5. It may be observed here, that, in pronouncing emphatic words of more than one syllable, the extra force is given to but one syllable of the word, and that is the accented syllable. When that syllable has been pronounced, the voice falls to the level of the unemphatic words in the sentence. This will be apparent from the following examples :

6. a. He is a soldier, not a philosopher; a politician, not a statesman.

b. Are not my ways equal, and are not your ways unequal?

c. There is a material difference between giving and forgiving.

d. One man finds more resources in his poverty to signalize his mercy, than another in his riches to satisfy his cruelty.

e. Some words are exclamatory, others are interrogatory; some sentences are spirited, others are tame and monotonous.

LESSON III.

1. When the antithesis is not plainly expressed, but is left to be supplied by the understanding, the word or words that ought to be emphasized are not always easily discovered, and nothing but a thorough knowledge of the meaning of the sentence can lead to them, and nothing but this can lead to the correct reading of the sentence. For illustration, let us take the following example:

"And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to the amazing whole,-

The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the whole must fall.”—Pope.

2. If this be read without emphasis on the words that

should be emphatic, the whole will be tame and spiritless, and almost meaningless; but by laying a strong emphasis on the word one in the third line, and giving but little less force to the words that and whole in the last line, we fully express the meaning, which is," that the least confusion, not in several parts or in a great many parts of the universe, but even in one part, would bring confusion on the whole."

3. In Gray's celebrated Elegy in a Country Church-Yard we have a striking instance of required emphasis, where only one part of the antithesis is expressed. The writer is foretelling what some hoary-headed swain may say of him, when he lies numbered among the unhonored dead :—

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,
Along the heath, and near his favorite tree;

Another came-nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne: Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay

Graved on the stone, beneath yon aged thorn."

4. Here the words thou canst should be made emphatic. But what is the other part of the antithesis? Evidently, the words I cannot. Then we have the whole antithesis that was in the mind of the speaker;-" thou canst read, but I cannot ;"- a beautiful way," says Walker, "of hinting the simplicity of the swain from his ignorance of the written characters of his language."

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LESSON IV.

1. But words are made additionally or variedly emphatic, so as to bring out the sense and give variety and beauty to expression, by other ways than by mere force of voice. In the enunciation of tender and pathetic pieces