"Elocution" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... me to take a course in elocution?" once asked a young man with oratorical ambitions of Henry ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... 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, and ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... turning the dainty white hat trimmed with pink flowers round on her hand, "let me introduce M. Denoisel again. You have met him before in the old days—that sounds as though we were quite aged, doesn't it?—and he is our theatrical manager, our professor of elocution, our prompter—scene shifter—everything." ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... 4-5). If such self-pity is to be literally interpreted, it only reflected an evanescent mood. His interest in all that touched the efficiency of his profession was permanently active. He was a keen critic of actors' elocution, and in 'Hamlet' shrewdly denounced their common failings, but clearly and hopefully pointed out the road to improvement. His highest ambitions lay, it is true, elsewhere than in acting, and at an early period of his theatrical ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... contend, must his method vary, not only in what is termed the "reading" of a part, but also in the technique of his execution. If to become a mere walking, talking machine, be the object of a beginner, by all means let him be instructed in calisthenics and elocution, and the art of first-night speech-making; but to call such a combination of classes a School of Dramatic Art is degrading; it robs the calling of its highest attribute—imagination. Innate ability must undoubtedly ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... strengthening mirth. It was his mission to make people happy. Words of good cheer were native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to lighten the lot of all who came into his beautiful presence. His talk was simple, natural, and direct, never dropping into circumlocution nor elocution. Now that he is gone, whoever has known him intimately for any considerable period of time will linger over his tender regard for, and his engaging manner with, children; his cheery "Good Day" to poor people he happened to be passing ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... have come down to us; the language of the calam has 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, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... effect eloquence is apt to have on the minds of the most prejudiced. At length, however, it was carried by the majority, that he should have liberty to proceed in his defence, which he began to such an exalted strain of moving elocution, that the heart of obdurate zeal was seen to melt, and the mind of superstition seemed to admit a ray of conviction. He made an admirable distinction between evidence as resting upon facts, and as supported by malice and calumny. He laid before ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... 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 ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... fact. To him it is always, 'Yes, sir, no, sir.' I'm going to tell him a few things when he comes home to-night of what I go through with all day in his absence. Elocution lessons! Just you ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... be giving Mr. Rushworth's opinion in better words than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to the door and looked after him. Judge my surprize, when I beheld the self-same figure that had appeared an 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 ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... "a 'atred for that," or would give "an 'int which might be useful" to the lady when she removed. The young ladies were heard tittering very much whenever Mrs. H. broke out, in a loud voice, with her imperfect elocution, and I felt so much annoyed, that I determined to cure ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... Protestantism. After one religious service in Fayal, my friend, the Professor of Languages, who sometimes gave lessons in English, remarked to me confidentially, in my own tongue,—"His sermon is good, but his exposition is bad; he does not expose well." Supposing him to refer to the elocution, I assented,—secretly thinking, however, that the divine in question had ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • 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 the surge, and caught from nature's ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... Ernestine the means of bestowing through her good elocution, united to the happy circumstance that brought it to the knowledge of the king! First there were her poor neighbors, to whom she could give instruction and entertainment. Then there was the poor ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... 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. Josephine ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Edward through her lashes—a look that always made him think of the pool above the parsonage, where lucent brown water shone through rushes. He saw the look, for he always glanced round as he read, having gathered from his book on elocution that this was correct. He smiled across at her, ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... (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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... of Dr. Sam. Wright in the opening stanza, is at variance with the general report of biographers. In the copy of the verses in the Blackmore MSS. is this note:—"I think this is too severe on the Dr." Dr. Wright was admired for his pulpit elocution; and it is said that Archbishop Herring was, in his younger years, a frequent hearer of his, with a view to improve in elocution. The notice of the celebrated Tom Bradbury is grossly unjust. He was a man of wit and courage, though ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... 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 having received information of this transaction, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... mind. It is usually hard labor for me to produce it outwardly and give it suitable expression." But the effort did not appear in the delivery, for his style, although emphatic, was easy and familiar; his delivery, if not altogether according to the rules of elocution, nevertheless gained his point completely. No word of his was dead-born. His voice was not always clear, as he often suffered from bronchial troubles, but it was not unpleasant, and had a penetrating quality, being of that middle pitch which carries ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... 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 ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... "they are too monotonous, too singsong, to dead-and-alive; they have no expression, no elocution. It isn't natural; it could never happen in real life. A person who had just acquired a dog is either blame' glad or blame' sorry. He is not on the fence. I never saw a case. What the nation do you suppose is the matter ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... not condescend to explain, and we went aft in a body, with John, the Swede, the oldest and best sailor of the crew, for spokesman. The recollection of the scene that followed always brings up a smile, especially the quarter-deck dignity and elocution of the captain. He was walking the weather side of the quarter-deck, and, seeing us coming aft, stopped short in his walk, and with a voice and look intended to annihilate us called out, "Well, what the d—-l do you want now?'' ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... deeply as she loved Oberlin, she must declare that it has more credit for liberality to woman than it deserves. Girls are not allowed equal privileges and advantages there; they are not allowed instructions in elocution, nor to speak on commencement day. The only college in the country that places all students on an equal footing, without distinction of sex or color, is McGrawville College in Central New York. Probably Antioch College, Ohio (President Horace Mann), will also ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Mosellanus as a man of a tall, square figure, with a voice fit for a public crier, but more coarse than distinct, and with nothing pleasant about it; with the mouth, the eyes, and the whole appearance of a butcher or soldier, but with a most remarkable memory. In power of memory and elocution he surpassed even Luther; but in solidity and real breadth of learning, impartial men like Pistoris gave the palm to Luther. Eck is said to have imitated the Italians in his great animation of speech, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... Poet and person was a younger brother of the Noble Family of the Herberts of Montgomery, whose florid wit, obliging humour in conversation, fluent Elocution, and great proficiency in the Arts, gained him that reputation at Oxford, where he spent his more youthful Age, that he was chosen University Orator, a place which required one of able parts to Mannage it; at last, taking ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... familiarity with the harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... 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 is French. We agree this is to avoid any heartburning ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... 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, ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... I have already hinted, had wonderful memories, and could recite numberless passages which they had learnt at school. Blanche, the elder girl, would give her sister and myself lessons in elocution; and I should like to say a word to teachers and children on the enormous utility of committing something to memory—whether poems, songs, or passages from historical or classical works. It is, of course, very unlikely that any one who reads these lines will be cast away ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... lectures 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 ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... giving them their highest interpretation,—or, at least, from sustaining it, without sharp falsetto effort, throughout the entire passage of a play. In a few impersonations, where Kemble, with all his mannerisms and defective elocution, and Macready, notwithstanding his uninspired, didactic nature, were most at their ease and successful, this actor would be somewhat put to his mettle,—a fact of which he is probably himself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... souls of your neighbours if they will let you; and for that reason you must cultivate, not a spirit 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 ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... youthful fancy; and she studied with a passionate ardor such parts as Hamlet, Romeo, and Richard III. With the wonderful intuition of an art-nature, she seems to have felt that the cultivation of the voice was a first essential to success. She ransacked her father's library for works on elocution, and discovering on one occasion "Rush on the Voice," proceeded, for many weeks before it became known to her parents, to commence under its guidance the task of building up a somewhat weak and ineffective organ into a voice capable of expressing with ease the whole gamut of ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... curtain which is fastened discloses mourning, this does not mean sparrows or elocution or even a whole preparation, it means that there are ears and very ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... School of Art, in which wood modelling, carving, and other minor arts were taught, as well as painting and drawing. There was a Commercial School for Arithmetic, Book-keeping, Shorthand, Typewriting; French, German, etc., were taught; there were Musical Classes, Elocution Classes, a School of Engineering, a School of Photography. Enough; it will be seen that everything a lad might desire to learn he could ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... some of the Bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual time) for one of the clerks—who is the best scholar—to commence upon the Times, or the Chronicle, and recite its entire contents aloud pro bono publico. With every advantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly vapid. In barbers' shops and public-houses a fellow will get up, and spell out a paragraph, which he communicates as some discovery. Another follows with his selection. So the entire journal transpires at length by piece-meal. Seldom-readers are slow readers, and, without ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... faithful to Jefferson's interests, and absolutely devoid of the personal authority demanded by so grave a cause. He was assisted by William Wirt, already a brilliant lawyer and possessed of a dazzling elocution, but sadly lacking in the majesty of years. At the head and forefront of the defense stood Burr himself, an unerring legal tactician, deciding every move of the great game, the stake of which for him was life ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... tact. His qualities and his limitations alike appear in the Spectator. For example, he tells us that he wishes that country clergymen would borrow the sermons of great divines, and devote all their own efforts to acquiring a good elocution: [Footnote: Spectator 106.] here we detect the practical moralist and the man who likes a thing good of its kind, but not the enthusiast. He upholds the observance of Sunday on account of its social ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... 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 ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... in the speech of the Learned Blacksmith, in the ordinary sense of that word, no grace of elocution, but mighty thoughts radiating off from his heated mind, like sparks from the glowing steel of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... original information; lecturing on the various objects 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 ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald
... "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 ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... were now correct, now hazy, now brilliantly original. On the whole it was not satisfactory; and when for a change the Doctor gave up reciting, and made the boys read, the effect was still worse. One boy, quite a master of elocution, spoilt the whole beauty of ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... to make me believe that I was born to become the most 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
... oneself) a personage of great importance, the debates were 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 ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the Secret Seal; the First Valet; the Chief of the Night Guard (Grand Drumgaire); the Chief of the Huntsmen (Protocynege); the Commander of the Body Guard of Foreigners (Acolyte); the Professor of Philosophy; the Professor of Elocution and Rhetoric; the Attorney General (Nornophylex); the Chief Falconer (Protojeracaire) and others—these he called one by one, and formally presented to the Princess, not minding that with many of them she was ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Hardees and Mackinnons, but Twing had managed to import into the cognate exercises of recitation a wonderful degree of enthusiasm and excellence. Dialectical Pike County, that had refused to recognize the governing powers of the nominative case, nevertheless came out strong in classical elocution, and Tom Hardee, who had delivered his ungrammatical protest on behalf of Pike County, was no less strong, if more elegant, in his impeachment of Warren Hastings as Edmund Burke, with the equal sanction of his parents. The ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... necessary to prefix to the present Volume any instructions in the art of Elocution, or to direct the accent or intonation of the student by the abundant use of italics or of large capitals. The principal, if not the only secrets of good reading are, to speak slowly, to articulate distinctly, to pause judiciously, and to feel the subject so as, if possible, ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... was reached with dreadful celerity. Doctor Parsons, having read a chapter from the New Testament, which he emerged from the congregation to do, and which he did ill, though he prided himself upon his elocution, returned to his seat as the Vicar rose, adjusted his double eyeglasses and gave out a ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... appears to be, that should we come to a fight they will completely alter the costume of the country, and "whop us into fits." Their style of elocution is masterly in the extreme, redolent with the sagest deductions, and overflowing with a magnificent and truly Eastern redundancy of the most poetical tropes. I will now proceed to give you an extract from the celebrated speaker on the war ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... everywhere vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest splendour: it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot-wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished numbers, may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this "vivida vis animi," in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can overpower criticism, ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the Queen's foibles. It was probably earlier in the year, and about this same Irish business, that Raleigh spoke to Elizabeth, on the occasion which Naunton describes. 'Raleigh,' he says, 'had gotten the Queen's ear at a trice; and she began to be taken with his elocution, and loved to hear his reasons to her demands; and the truth is, she took him for a kind of oracle, which nettled them all.' Lord Grey, who was no diplomatist, had the want of caution to show that he was annoyed at advice being asked ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... gardening, agriculture, carpentry, turning, locksmith's work, work in forge. Drawing, writing, elocution, music. Knowledge of literature and human nature, physics, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... Hogswash (1794) took its title from the fact that Burke called the people the "swinish multitude." The book resulted in sending the author to the Tower for sedition. In 1798 he gave up politics and started a school of elocution which became very famous. Thomas Hardy (1752-1832), who kept a bootmaker's shop in Piccadilly, was a fellow prisoner with Thelwall, being arrested for high treason. He was founder (1792) of The London ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... 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 ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... "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
... prospectus that recalls Mr. Squeers' famous advertisement of Dotheboys Hall, announced that the programme of the Academy would include "reading, taught as an art and upon the most approved principles of elocution, writing, arithmetic, euclid, algebra, mensuration, trigonometry, book-keeping, geography, grammar, spelling and dictation, composition, logic and debate, French, Latin, shorthand, history, music, and general lectures on astronomy, natural philosophy, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... portrait of Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book contains is a description and analysis ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Professor Riecabocca and Mr. Philip de Gray have received a cable despatch from the Prince of Wales, inviting them to instruct his sons in elocution and music, at a very liberal salary. They have this proposal under consideration, though they are naturally rather reluctant to give up the plaudits of the public, even for so honorable ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... on his American specimens he had, I 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
... a woman's pen was written by Miss Caroline B. Le Row, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a teacher of elocution, and the writer of many charming stories and verses. It was suggested by a study in butter of "The Dreaming Iolanthe," moulded by Caroline S. Brooks on a kitchen-table, and exhibited at the Centennial in Philadelphia. I do not remember any other poem in ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... the sub-title: "An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking; calculated to improve the Minds and refine the Taste of Youth, and also to instruct them in the Geography, History, and Politics of the United States. To which are prefixed Rules in Elocution, and Directions for expressing the Principal Passions of the Mind." This laboriously emphatic title-page bears the motto from Mirabeau: "Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be Washington." In strict accordance with this patriotic sentiment, the compiler gives a ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... task of the philosopher and the literary expert. We observe only the superficialities. There are never more than THREE speaking actors before the audience at once. They wear huge masques, shaped to fit their parts. The wide mouthpieces make the trained elocution carry to the most remote parts of the theater. The actors wear long trailing robes and are mounted on high shoes to give them sufficient stature before the distant audience. When a new part is needed in the play, an actor retires to the booth, and soon comes forth with a changed masque and costume—an ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... (1807-92) "The Revenge" finds a welcome here because it is a favourite with teachers of elocution and their audiences. It teaches us to hold life cheap when the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... debut of M. Rollin took place in 1842. His first speech was delivered on the subject of the secret-service money. The elocution was easy and flowing, the manner oratorical, the style somewhat turgid and bombastic. But in the course of the session M. Rollin improved, and his discourse on the modification of the criminal law, on other legal subjects, ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... touch of imaginative poetry in the part of Flamineo: his passion, excitable on occasion and vehement enough is as prosaic in its homely and cynical eloquence as the most fervent emotions of a Napoleon or an Iago when warmed or goaded into elocution. The one is a human snake, the other is a human wolf. Webster could not with equal propriety have put into the mouth of Flamineo such magnificent lyric poetry as seems to fall naturally, however suddenly and strangely, from the bitter and blood-thirsty tongue of Bosola. ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... open a "Permanent Commercial School," at 148 Fulton Street, and advertised to teach the usual branches "in the inductive method." His advertisement set forth that his pupils would be taught "reading, elocution, penmanship, and arithmetic; algebra; astronomy, history, and geography; moral philosophy, commercial law, and political economy; English grammar and composition, and, also, if required, the French and Spanish languages by natives of those countries." ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... his tenderest point by her insensibility to his elocution] Oh, indeed! I'm mad, am I? Very well, Mrs. Pearce: you needn't order the new clothes for ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... 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 overcome ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... 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 ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... a—well, like any other star's. She was pertinaciously temperamental: that is to say, spoiled; beautiful women are so, for the most part—invariably so, if on the stage. That kind of temperament is part of an actress' equipment, an asset, as much an item of her stock in trade as any trick of elocution or pantomime. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... Accommodation betwixt two Faces of such different Extremes, as the only possible Expedient to mend the Breed, and rectify the Physiognomy of the Family on both Sides. And again, as she is a Lady of very fluent Elocution, you need not fear that your first Child will be born dumb, which otherwise you might have some Reason to be apprehensive of. To be plain with you, I can see nothing shocking in it; for tho she has not a Face like a John-Apple, yet as a late Friend of mine, who ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... me to call together a few persons known to be in favor of suffrage, some day during anniversary week, in some parlor in Boston. I corresponded with Adin Ballou, E. D. Draper, and others, on the subject, and talked the matter over with Prof. T. T. Leonard, teacher of elocution, who offered his hall for a place of meeting. I wrote a notice inviting all persons interested in woman suffrage to come to Mr. Leonard's hall, on a certain day and hour. At the time appointed the hall was full of people. I opened ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... away with the artificial and mechanical styles of teaching.—Henry W. Smith, A.M., Professor of Elocution, ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... omitted in the Treatise. The nod is given to elocution. Invention is discussed, but only as a tool to assist the communicator in amplifying his ideas, as a means to spin out his thoughts to extreme lengths. Arrangement, memory, and delivery are overlooked. Accordingly, the Treatise neatly ...
— A Treatise of Schemes and Tropes • Richard Sherry
... oratory. That "clear-cut articulation is the charm of eloquence" is one of his insisted-upon statements, and it well illustrates the lifelong practice of the man himself, for every word as he talks can be heard in every part of a large building, yet always he speaks without apparent effort. He avoids "elocution." His voice is soft-pitched and never breaks, even now when he is over seventy, because, so he explains it, he always speaks in his natural voice. There is never ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... cessation, so constantly, so unweariedly, and so unblameably. Two things (rarely to be found in one man) were eminent in him, viz. a quick invention and sound judgment, and these accompanied with a homely but clear expression, and graceful elocution; so that such as knew him best were in a strait whether to admire him most for his penetrating wit and sublime genius in the schools, and peculiar exactness in disputes and matters of controversy, or his familiar condescension in the pulpit, where he was one of the most moving and ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... as 'Alexander's Feast.'" Musical prominence 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 ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... their wit, without any mixture of that licentiousness, which while it pleased, tended to corrupt the audience. The first step our author made into life, was in the character of an ensign in the army. He was possessed of a very ready wit, and an agreeable elocution. He happened somewhere in his winter quarters, to contract an acquaintance with Sir Thomas Skipwith, and received a particular obligation from him. He had very early discovered a taste for dramatic writing, to improve ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... were spokesman," 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 ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... incapable 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, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... Ardry; "no one questions his judgment concerning what relates to elocution. His fame on that point is so well established, that the greatest orators do not disdain occasionally to consult him; C—- {251b} himself, as I have been told, when anxious to produce any particular effect in the House, is in the habit of calling in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... is as though the theatres in England were given up exclusively to, say, Shakespeare's Henry IV, V and VI sequence. On the occasion of my visit there was little of what we call acting, but endless elocution. During the performance the attendants walk about, with the persistence of constables during a London police-court hearing, carrying refreshments and little charcoal stoves. The signal for the next act is a deafening clicking noise made by one of the stage hands on two sticks, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... repose in her Hamlet, though there were moments of leaden lapse which suggested physical exhaustion; and there was no range in her elocution expressive of the large vibration of that tormented spirit. Her voice dropped out, or jerked itself out, and in the crises of strong emotion it was the voice of a scolding or a hysterical woman. At times her ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... company) quicker than Hector, and I certainly never saw a boy that "showed off" more. His mother was wrapped up in him; you could see in a minute that she fairly worshipped him; but I don't know, if it hadn't been for Mary, that I'd have praised his recitations and elocution ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... under Lord Townsend's administration, encountered violent 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... Commons, I mean the layety, as for the Clergy, the King writes, "Le Roy remerciant les Seigneurs, &c., Prelats, &c., accepte leur benevolences." The Speaker's speech was far from any oratory, but was as plain (though good matter) as any thing could be, and void of elocution. After the bills passed, the King, sitting on his throne, with his speech writ in a paper which he held in his lap, and scarce looked off of it, I thought, all the time he made his speech to them, giving them thanks for their subsidys, of which, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... in 1815 to the Royal Institution. Here he helped Davy for years; he worked also for himself, and lectured frequently at the City Philosophical Society. He took lessons in elocution, happily without damage to his natural force, earnestness, and grace of delivery. He was never pledged to theory, and he changed in opinion as knowledge advanced. With him life was growth. In those early lectures we hear ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... 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 of his every tone could not be reproduced by any artifice known ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... performance may safely be said to defy criticism, or rather to be above it, except such criticism as accords with enthusiastic admiration. It is absolutely without a shortcoming, seen from this standpoint. His majestic bearing, his beautiful elocution, his pure voice, his graceful, expressive gestures, and above all his perfect freedom from affectation or self-consciousness, delight us throughout; and when to these qualities are added the marvelous vigor of expression and force of passion with which he shakes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... be a charity," said the former, "if some philanthropist would give this blighter elocution lessons. ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... reputed historians, and all the best French, English, or Italian writers. His apprehension was quick, his imagination fine, and his memory remarkably strong; though his greatest commendations were a very genteel address, a ready wit and an excellent elocution, which shewed him to advantage wherever he went. There was, notwithstanding, one principal defect in his disposition, and this was an infinite vanity, which gave him so insufferable a presumption, as led him to think that nothing was too much for his capacity, nor any preferment, or favour, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... taking a lesson in elocution: that is to say Mr. Repton, the visiting-master for this branch of study, was reading aloud, in a sonorous voice, a chapter of HANDY ANDY. He underlined his points heavily, and his hearers, like ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... "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 first evening, not one of Bryant's or ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... either the man is in need and speaks truth, or he is a liar and therefore a consummate actor. We pay for stage representations: why deny our obolus to the histrionics of the beggar? So artistic a make up, an elocution with such moving notes of pathos, surely deserve our tribute. Nay (and this Elia forgot to note), the beggar-actor is frequently the author of his own piece; that consistent argument, those tragical episodes, those touches of nature, that minute detail, all are his. For my part, this view ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... brother, Mr. Chichester Bell, and having visited with the family when they lived in Dublin, Ireland. Mr. David Bell had in his young days moved to Dublin to carry on the career of his father, Alexander Bell, as a teacher of elocution. His wife had a school for young ladies. Another son of the family was Mr. Charles J. Bell, later president of the American Security and Trust Company, who later married my mother's sister, Roberta Hubbard, and came to reside ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... insurgents was colonel Nathaniel Bacon, a gentleman 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 ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... he took them prisoners while they were engaged in dividing their plunder. Carrying them to Pergamus, he handed them over to the civil authorities, by whom his promise of crucifying them all was duly carried out. Then he went to Rhodes, and spent two years in the study of elocution. He had proved himself an awkward kind of prey ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... muttered the disconcerted priest, "if the fool has a wife he will never do for us." In the course of his wanderings this nineteenth-century S. Augustine often gave himself out to be a teacher of elocution. ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... in the lecture-room of this Theological Seminary? As 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, ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies
... I've saw him walk along the street in Lancaster a'ready and a'most walk into people!" "He certainly can stand on the pulpit elegant!" agreed Mrs. Wackernagel. "Why, he can preach his whole sermont with the Bible shut, yet! And he can put out elocution that ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... philosophers call intellectual; the largeness of your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocution: and I have often thought that of all the persons living that I have known, your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the mind of man by Nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and original ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... been carefully educated for public life, the ambition for it dinned into his ear from childhood. In his school vacations his father made him learn and declaim chosen specimens of masculine oratory; engaged an eminent actor to give him lessons in elocution; bade him frequent theatres, and study there the effect which words derive from looks and gesture; encouraged him to take part himself in private theatricals. To all this the boy lent his mind with delight. ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... recollection, and are necessarily therefore most imperfect. The best-known specimen of Pitt's eloquence, his reply to the sneers of Horatio Walpole at his youth and declamatory manner, which has found a place in so many handbooks of elocution, is evidently, in form at least, the work, not of Pitt, but of Dr Johnson, who furnished the report to the Gentleman's Magazine. Probably Pitt did say something of the kind attributed to him, though even this is by no means certain in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... 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
... Charles E. Fitch, but just gone after long newspaper service, delivered a course of lectures on the training of the journalist, at Cornell University. Two years later Mr. Brainerd Smith, before and after of the New York Sun, then professor of elocution in the same university, began training in the work of the newspaper in his class in composition, sending out his class on assignments and outlining possible occurrences which the class wrote out. This experiment ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... 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 plausibility ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... Athenian. From the Swedish of Victor Rydberg. Highly recommended by Fredrika Bremer. Paper $1.50, or in cloth, 2 00 Comstock's Elocution and Reader. Enlarged. By Andrew Comstock and Philip Lawrence. With 236 Illustrations. Half morocco, 2 00 Comstock's Colored Chart. Every School should have a copy of it. 5 00 Across the Atlantic. Letters from France, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... 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 ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero |
